Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!

How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.

To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase… Rather, it’s displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

We are a nation founded as a rebuke to tyranny. A nation of revolutionaries who refused sovereign reign from afar. Hear me – we’re a nation that says give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A nation built on our differences, guided by the belief that we’re all created equal.

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.

This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.

None of us has any personal interest above the interests of the country. Our country is more important than our careers.

We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line. Don’t forget it.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

There is no place, no country, more compassionate more generous more accepting and more welcoming than the United States of America.

Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I’m going to Viet Nam’s aid!

Mandela’s heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

For me, America is really, truly the indispensable nation.

Given a fair shot, given a fair chance, Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down. Never. Never. Ordinary people like us. Who do extraordinary things.

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn’t give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass the test.

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood.

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive! Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

I pay a lot of tax, and I feel, one of the reasons I stay and pay why I’m not based in Monaco… I think my country helped me.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

I carry the flag of Ireland all the time. I want to represent my country.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

For the mission’s sake, for our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in past battles – carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country’s cause.

What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.

The greatest thrill in my life was to represent the United States of America.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Here at home, when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again, and rekindle an American spirit of community.

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!

If you don’t know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.