Patti Smith Quotes

I love Canada. I am from Canada. I will bash the Canadian government but never Canada.

There was a time when a willingness to criticize one's own government when it was wrong was the very definition of patriotism.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

The most patriotic and American thing you can do is to distrust your government

Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.

I love my country, not my government.

Especially right after 9/11. Especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on. There was a real sense that you don't get that critical of a government that's leading us in war time.

I love my country but fear my government.

I feel sorry for those who measure their patriotism by how often and how viciously they can criticize our government.

I am not an American who believes that questioning or criticizing my government is unpatriotic.

An actual residence of such a length of time as would give a man an opportunity of esteeming the Government from knowing its intrinsic value, was essentially necessary to assure us of a man’s becoming a good citizen.

It’s almost impossible to love your country and hate your government.

It's not always easy to be proud of your government.

I love my country. It's just the government I don't trust.

A true patriot does not confuse government with country. A patriot's loyalty is to his country, and loyalty to country requires holding government accountable.

The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, My country, right or wrong. In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

To criticize one's country is to do it a service.... Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism-a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation.

I believe that it is my right and responsibility as an American to question our government when our government is wrong. I'm not one of the immature patriots who say my country right or wrong because my country is wrong now, and my country-the policies of my country are responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people, and I won't stand by and let that happen anymore.

Americans can live with the fact that good people sometimes give their lives for this country, but what they can't take, what they can't live with is when their government is not square with them.

For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

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. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

America is greatest country; but not our government.

I mean, the notion that we must love everything in this country or get out and go someplace else is ridiculous. I mean, if you -- the best thing a patriotic American can do is to look and be critical and find out what's wrong and try to make it better. That's what a patriotic American does.

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.