Robert Dornan Quotes

The way to preserve the flag's special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong.... Our decision is a reaffirmation of the principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects, and of the conviction that our toleration of such criticism [flag-burning] is a sign and source of our strength.

We can imagine no more appropriate response to burning a flag than to waving one's own, no better way to counter a flag-burner's message than by saluting the flag that burns, no surer means of preserving the dignity even of the flag that burned than by, as one witness here did, according its remains a respectful burial.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

I done but do my duty boys. The flag never touched the ground.

Show me the race or nation without a flag, and I will show you a people without any pride.

The Supreme Court decision [Texas v. Johnson, 1989] does not in any way indicate the government is backing off from forcing the flag on people. They just don't want to look too dictatorial in the way they do it.

He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.

It’s a little strange, this obsession with the flag. It’s incomprehensible to someone who comes from a country where the flag has, so to speak, disappeared, where any nostalgia and concern for it is a sign of an attachment to the past…

I don’t like to see our flag torn down and trampled upon anywhere in the world and I think most Americans agree with me on that. I don’t like to see American citizens pushed around and there’s no good reason for letting it happen

Ireland Forever.

And, as the last vessel spread her canvas to the wind, the Americans hoisted a most superb and splendid ensign on their battery.

A flag should unite those over whom it flies.

The Republic never retreats. Its flag is the only flag that has never known defeat. Where that flag leads we follow, for we know that the hand that bears it onward is the unseen hand of God.

If it [the American flag] is not defended, it is defamed.

Respect for the flag transcends political party.

If it [the American flag] is not defended, it is defamed. We can't forget the importance of the flag to the ideals of liberty and honor and freedom. To burn the flag, to dishonor it, is simply wrong.

Back under Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, times were tough. [American] Flags weren't selling that well. [During the Reagan-Bush years] Flag slaes have taken off.

The American flag must not be fired upon …. There is considerable American capital invested in Santo Domingo.

RESOLVED: That the flag of the United States shall be of thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white in a blue field, representing the new constellation.

I name thee Old Glory.

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige.

It's your flag and my flag.

I have seen the glories of art and architecture, and mountain and river; I have seen the sunset on the Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mt. Blanc, but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land.

When I look at his gallant services, finding him first in the military school of the United States, educated at the expense of his country—taught to love the principles of the Constitution; afterwards entering its service fighting beneath the Stars and Stripes, ... I cannot understand how he can be willing to hail another banner, and turn from that of his country; .... If I could not unsheathe my sword in vindication of the flag of my country, ... I would return the sword to its scabbard; I would never sheathe it in the bosom of my mother. Never! Never! Never!

It is an unmistakable statement of contempt for a government to burn its flag.