Flag Day Quotes

Personal Archives | 06-14-02 | PsyOp

[PsyOp]

We give our Heads! and our Hearts! to Our Country!
One Country! One Language! One Flag!
- Colonel George T. Balch.

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Off with your hat as the flag goes by
And let the heart have its say;
You're man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away.
- Henry Cuyler Bunner.

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Yet, Freedom! yet the banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind!
- G.G. Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

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The colors that float from the masthead should be the credentials of our seamen. There is no safety to us, and the gentlemen have shown it, but in the rule that all who sail under the flag (not being enemies) are protected by the flag. - Henry Clay, speech, House of Representatives. January 8, 1813.

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Then raise the Scarlet Standard high!
Beneath it's shade we'll live and die!
Though cowards flinch and traitors jeer,
We'll keep the Red Flag flying here.
- James Connell.

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If any man haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. - Major General John A. Dix. 1861.

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When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?
- Joseph Rodman Drake, The American Flag, 1835.

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I name thee Old Glory. - Captain William Driver, said upon the hoisting of a large American flag which had been presented to him by a group of women.

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Rally round the flag, boys --
Give it to the breeze!
That’s the banner that we bore
On the land and seas.
Brave hearts are under it,
Let the traitors brag,
Gallant lads, fire away!
And fight for the flag.
Their flag is but a rag --
Ours is the true on;
Up with the stars and stripes!
Down with the new one!
Let our colors fly, boys --
Guard them day and night;
For victory is liberty,
And God will bless the right.
- James T. Fields, “The Stars & Stripes.”

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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 Mont Blanc; but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower to those who hate it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate it, it is the symbol of the power and glory, and the honor, of fifty million Americans. - George Frisbie Hoar.

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Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Old Ironsides.

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One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation, evermore! - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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'Twas red with the blood of freemen and white
With the fear of the foe;
And the stars that fit in their courses 'gainst
Tyrants its symbols knows.
- Julia Ward Howe, "The Flag."

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The government claims the right, and it is conceded that the government has the right, to go to your house, while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and sweet—the government claims the right to go to your fireside and take you by force, and put you in the army; take you down to the valley and the shadows of hell, set you by the ruddy roaring guns, and to make you fight for your flag. Now, that being so, when the war is over, and your country is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I want to know, if it is not bound to fight for you. The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. - Robert G. Ingersoll, speech in Indianapolis. 1876.

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Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
- Francis Scott Key, The Star-Spangled Banner, September 14, 1814.

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It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man whose people have been here many generations. - Henry Cabot Lodge.

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I see that the old flagpole still stands. Have our troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down. - General Douglas MacArthur.

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Not for the flag
Of any land because myself was born there
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that land where man is free,
And that I will defend.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay.

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Th' imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd
Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1665.

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The union of hearts--the union of hands--And the flag of our Union forever. - George Pope Morris.

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Your flag and my flag,
And how it flies today
In your land and my land
And half a world away!
Rose-red and blood-red
The stripes for ever gleam;
Snow-white and souldwhite--
The good forefathers’ dream;
Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright--
The gloried guidon of the day; a shelter through the night.
- Wilbur D. Nesbit, “A Song for Flag Day.”

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And when we view a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our interests to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #14. December 9, 1783.

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We have room in this country for but one flag, the Stars and Stripes.... We have room for but one loyalty, loyalty to the United States.... - Theodore Roosevelt.

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Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom,
We will rally from the hill-side, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom.
- George F. Root.

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If in a foreign land, the flag is companionship, and country itself, with all its endearments. - Charles Summer.

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There is the National Flag. He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. - Charles Summer.

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If this man should fall, who will lift the flag and carry it on. - General Strong prior to the assault on Fort Wagner.

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We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty. - George Washington.

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Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God. - George Washington, speech to the Constitutional Convention, 1787.

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“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.
- J.G. Whittier, Barbara Frietchie.

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When I think of the flag.... I see alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice, and stripes of blood to vindicate those rights, and then, in the corner, a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim which stands for these great things. - Woodrow Wilson.

[Cagey]

On an aside...I've read works modern and old considering whether Catholics and Turks (the latter being the polite way of referring to Catholics when arguing legislation, I'm told) could be citizens of the United States, given that they are beholden to a "foreign prince."

That's some "aside" you noted. Maybe you can tell that "aside" of yours to the family members of the 16,806 American Catholics who died during the Vietnam war. And from there you can do a little research and see how many other Catholics died during America's other wars.

On another "aside", where do you get all that propoganda you like to read? This thread was about Flag day, not your little problem with American Catholics.

[VOA]

thanks for the ping...great quotes as usual!

[Libertina]

PBS who? :)
BUMP! Wonderful thread Psyop, already right-clicked and saved, thank you. This one touched me very much:
Off with your hat as the flag goes by
And let the heart have its say;
You're man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away.
- Henry Cuyler Bunner. Pride in good - I am happy to see its return.

[reformed_democrat]

Thank you, PsyOp. I love these threads.

[Pistias]

I'm Catholic. And I think quotes like the one that sparked my original comment put me in a difficult place. Sorry if I ruined your day.

[Pistias]

where do you get all that propoganda you like to read?

A Catholic teacher of mine, and transcripts of debates in the Colonies by the prominent men of the day. You are vigorous in your defense of Catholicism; don't you think the question is valid?

[Cagey]

....don't you think the question is valid?

Not really. As an earlier poster remarked, that question was settled during the 1960 Presidential campaign.

[nicollo]

*bump*

Oh hell, you've got Stone-Head Wilson and Ziggy Roosevelt, so here's a couple from the Big Man who came in between. At Terrell, TX, in 1909, the President spoke to a group of children.

"I am very glad to see the children here this Sunday morning. I am glad to see them with their flags. You know what the flags are, my children?"
"Yes, Sir. The flag of the United States."
"Do you know the flag of Texas?"
"Yes Sir."
"What is it?"
"The lone star."
"Are you loyal to both flags?"
"Yes, Sir"
"I bet you are. Now, my children, do you know who I am?"
"Yes, Sir." "President Taft"

To a Missisippi audience Taft said,

One of your great heroes of Mississippi is Jefferson Davis, and I am glad that the Administration at Washington has wiped out the evidence of that extreme partisan bitterness at Cabin John Bridge, and that his name is restored here as Secretary of War. I am glad because I can testify fom my experience in the South that the same joy that they experienced at that act on the part of the Administration is the joy of a common country and loyalty to a common flag"

[PsyOp]

Thanks for the quotes. I'll add them to the data-base.

P.S. I know a few of the quotes on the flag were by people less than reputable, but a good word about the flag is still a good word about the flag.

[PsyOp]

PBS = Pathetic Bombast System or, Putrid Bombast System depending on how bad the programing that month is.