Quotes / My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting

America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?

— Allen Ginsberg, "America"

My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it.

— Noam Chomsky

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

— James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes

O Beautiful, for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,

for strip-mined mountains' majesty, above the asphalt plain.

America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,

and hides the pines, with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.

— George Carlin, Class Clown

My Country, Right or Wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

— Carl Schurz (referencing and commenting on a quote by Stephen Decatur)

We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.

— Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.

— Norman Thomas

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.

— Malcolm X

Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

— Mark Twain, The Czar's Soliloquy

I came to expect despair every time I set foot in my own country, and I was never disappointed.

— Nina Simone

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

— Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"

I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.

— Frederick Douglass, "Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country"

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