A Quote by Bertrand Russell

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

Bertrand Russell

Quote Topics

Patriotism Reasons Trivial Willingness

Quote Author

Bertrand Russell
British - Celebrity
May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970

The Vietnamese have a secret weapon. It's their willingness to die beyond our willingness to kill. In effect, they've been saying, You can kill us, but you'll have to kill a lot of us; you may have to kill all of us. And, thank heaven, we are not yet ready to do that.

George Wald

A fanatic's willingness to kill or be killed in the service of a cause cannot prove the rightness of that cause.

Poul Anderson

You know what I'm great at? Trivial Pursuit. What good is that gonna do you in life? It has the word 'trivial' in the name. The game is basically telling you that you pursue trivial things. Trivial - as in not important. Trivial - as in maybe you should've gone to grad school.

Christian Finnegan

Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.

Ron Paul

There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being killed by others

Lafcadio Hearn

They might kill me but they cannot kill Gandhism. If truth can be killed, Gandhism can be killed.

Mahatma Gandhi

There is Ontario patriotism, Quebec patriotism, or Western patriotism; each based on the hope that it may swallow up the others, but there is no Canadian patriotism, and we can have no Canadian nation when we have no Canadian patriotism.

Henri Bourassa

Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.

Ron Paul

You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him." "So? He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.

Tamora Pierce

"I'm not their slave," the man mutters. "I am," I say. "That's why I killed Cato ... and he killed Thresh ... and he killed Clove ... and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games."

Suzanne Collins

You have to have a lot of experience and confidence and a willingness to go down when things aren't right and try again. That's when people in the Himalayas get hurt, when they don't have the knowledge or willingness to retreat when necessary. There's no place for a macho attitude in the Himalayas. It's what gets people killed.

Jeff Lowe

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

Ron Paul

On prime time entertainment television, scientists are most at risk. Ten percent of scientists featured in prime-time entertainment programming get killed, and five percent kill someone. No other occupational group is more likely to kill or be killed.

George Gerbner

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.