Best Flags Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 9

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.”

Should Wells Long War Shows Remember Goes On Clothes Gun Blue Paint Noble Appropriate Flags Pigs Cradle Oratory Grunt Fours Cats Cradle

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“I'm not a flag waver for obesity. It's not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it.”

Healthy Flags Crap Obesity Downers

Author:Jo Brand

“It is a dangerous day when we can take the cross out of the church more easily than the flag. No wonder it is hard for seekers to find God nowadays.”

Hard Church Wonder Dangerous Crosses Flags Seekers

Book:The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.”

World Existence Alive Dangerous Danger Adventure Towns Regard Experiments Encounters Judged Flags Schemes Assault Shrinks Calamity Traitor Dangerous Things Great Adventure

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“I'd buy myself a cabin on the beach, I'd put some glue in my navel, and I'd stick a flag in there. Then I'd wait to see which way the wind was blowing.”

Way Waiting Wind Sticks Beach Flags Glue Cabins Navel

Author:Albert Camus

“Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red flag to a bu... was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.”

Men Fronts Red Metaphor Annoying Flags Annoyed Discworld Red Flags Lords And Ladies Ridcully

Author:Terry Pratchett

“Tomorrow you're all going to wake up in a brave new world, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax and spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh... and everybody's high!”

“Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow.”

Ifs Looks Water Harder Disaster Snow Ice Flags Leafs Ice Water

Author:Margaret Atwood

“O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.' And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

May Made War Home Nations Stars Causes Land Victory Praise Brave Wave Conquer Triumph Flags Motto Banner Desolation Freeman Land Of The Free

Book:Poems

Source: Poems

“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”

Funny Political Humorous Constitution Burning Flags Wraps Commentators Humorists Columnists

Author:Molly Ivins

“It was how wars really ended, Dieffenbaker supposed -- not at truce tables but in cancer wards and office cafeterias and traffic jams. Wars died one tiny piece at a time, each piece something that fell like a memory, each lost like an echo that fades in winding hills. In the end even war ran up the white flag. Or so he hoped. He hoped that in the end even war surrendered.”

War Ends Lost Memories White Pieces Office Died Tables Cancer Tiny Hills Ran Flags Fades Echoes Traffic Jam Cafeteria Truce Traffic Jam White Flag

Author:Stephen King

“Good women are no fun... The only good woman I can recall in history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag.”

Made I Can Fun Humorous Witty Sarcastic Flags Recalls Good Woman Betsy Ross

Author:Mae West

“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

Source: America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

“How're we getting to King's Cross tomorrow, Dad?" asked Fred as they dug into a sumptuous pudding. "The Ministry's providing a couple of cars," said Mr. Weasley. Everyone looked up at him. "Why?" said Percy curiously. "It's because of you, Perce," said George seriously. "And there'll be little flags on the hoods, with HB on them-" "-for Humongous Bighead," said Fred.”

Littles Said Family Car Couple Kings Dad Tomorrow Crosses Flags Providing Ministry Hood Pudding Weasley Because Of You Fred Weasley Sumptuous Funny Harry Potter Percy Weasley

Author:J. K. Rowling

“You have taught us much. Come with us and join the movement." "This movement of yours, does it have slogans?" inquired the Chink. "Right on!" they cried. And they quoted him some. "Your movement, does it have a flag?" asked the Chink. "You bet!" and they described their emblem. "And does your movement have leaders?" "Great leaders." "Then shove it up your butts," said the Chink. "I have taught you nothing.”

Doe Said Leader Movement Taught Flags Cried Slogans Great Leader Taught Us Emblems Chinks

Author:Tom Robbins

“It comes as a great shock…to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance…has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”

Killing Indian Shock Flags Allegiance Gary

Author:James A. Baldwin

“A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.”

Ifs Ends Air Sea Land Red Rain Tables Clouds Corners Chairs Flags Lightning Thunder Twisted Liquid Pillars Banner Ragged

Book:The Crack-up

Source: The Crack-up

“'You've got mail!' exclaims the cheery automaton at America Online. The flag on the mailbox icon waves invitingly on my computer screen. For a second, I'm 10 years old again, waiting for the postman's whistle to slice the stillness of an Australian afternoon.”

Years America Waiting Computer Wave Screens Online Afternoon Flags Stillness Mail Australian Icons Whistling Postman Computer Screen Mailboxes

Author:Geraldine Brooks

“A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name.”

World Firsts Children Littles Different Lasts Turns Names Feet Baby Strikes Flesh Surrender Cheer Flags Scent Trails Crow Different Names

Book:The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong.”

Heart Littles Has Beens Matter Body Faces Known Too Much Lovers Drink Conversation Mouths Cat Dresses Paint Dinner Stores Dry Sweat Flags Strokes Threatening Palms Heart Attack Nervousness Dry Up

Book:The Passion

Source: The Passion

“However, displayed right alongside all the Confederate flag paraphernalia is a bunch of American flag merch – American flag place mats, patriotic “body crystals,” flag stickers you attach to your skin. Personally, I’m small-minded and literal enough that I see the two symbols as contradictory, especially in a time of war. But I fear that the consumer who buys a Confederate flag coffee cup, which she will then put on her American flag place mat, is the sort of sophisticated thinker who is open-minded enough that she is capable of hating blacks and Arabs at the same time.”

“Unless you call attention to your presence who will know you're there? Even a country has to weave and wave a flag as proof of its existence.”

Knows Country Existence Attention Wave Proof Flags Your Presence

Author:Rod McKuen

“He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.”

“When I was young and bold and strong, The right was right, the wrong was wrong. With plume on high and flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. But now I’m old - and good and bad, Are woven in a crazy plaid. I sit and say the world is so, And wise is s/he who lets it go.”

World Young Strong Wise Crazy Flags Good And Bad Let It Go Woven Plaid

Author:Dorothy Parker

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”

People Mind Firsts Kind Use Government Causes Bits Century Nationalism Genocide Flags Shrinks Wraps Twentieth Century Shrouds

Book:War Talk

Source: War Talk

“But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock my the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.”

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream.”

Dream House Water Sea Ocean Red Treats Midst Flags Breeze Tokyo Red Flags Flapping Buoys Sea Breeze

Book:Goodbye Tsugumi

Source: Goodbye Tsugumi

“Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments - a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared.”

Standing Weight Empires Republic Flags Armament Bryan Republic Day

Author:William Jennings Bryan

“Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”

“It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.”

Said Stills Done Universe Alive Sadness Battle Flags Sad Music

Author:Terry Pratchett

“She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create.”

Ifs Men World Should Stills Running Wanted Asks Left Army Murder Wave Proof Flags Brutal

Book:Let The Great World Spin

Source: Let The Great World Spin

“A flag is supposed to represent everything that a country does. It doesn't only represent the good things. If you burn the flag, you're burning the flag for what you perceive to be the bad things the country has done. it's only a symbol. It's only a piece of cloth.”

Ifs Doe Country Done Pieces Good Things Symbols Burning Perceive Bad Things Flags Flag Burning

Book:Last Words

Source: Last Words

“We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag …? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!”

Ifs World Wells Made Country Use Millions Five Hundred India Claims Sticks Around The World Britain Flags Sail Cunning

Author:Eddie Izzard

“THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM [all snap flags] Parmenides named his gun The Hot Power of the Stars. His gun was one, uncreated, imperishable, timeless, changeless, perfect, spherical. Spherical was the problem.”

Problem Stars Perfect Gun Hot Flags Timeless Snaps

Author:Anne Carson

“Identification with the rag called the national flag is an emotional and sentimental factor and for that factor you are willing to kill another - and that is called, the love of your country, love of the neighbor . . .? One can see that where sentiment and emotion come in, love is not.”

Country Love Is Emotion Emotional Willing Neighbor Factors Sentiments Flags Sentimental Identification Rags Country Love

Book:The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: 1966-1967 : Perennial questions

Source: The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: 1966-1967 : Perennial questions

“When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.”

“Children of the Nephilim," Magnus said. "Well, well. I don't recall inviting you." Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These"--she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm--"are my friends." Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with fastidious distaste. "I must have been drunk," he said. He threw the door open. "Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests." Jace looked at him, "Even if one of them spills something on my new shoes?" "Even then." - 219”

“Japanese-owned cargo ship Tsimtsum, flying Panamanian flag, sank July 2nd, 1977, in Pacific, four days out of Manila. Am in lifeboat. Pi Patel my name. Have some food, some water, but Bengal tiger a serious problem. Please advise family in Winnepeg, Canada. Any help very much appreciated. Thank you.”

Helping Problem Names Water Four Serious Please Flying Ships Canada Flags Tigers Appreciated Advise July Pacific Cargo Manila Lifeboats Bengal Tigers

Book:Life of Pi - CANCELED

Source: Life of Pi - CANCELED

“The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.”

America Trouble Percent Dollars Soldier Flags Restless

Author:Smedley Butler

“A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.”

Ifs Stories Gone Degrees Authority Flags Regimes Wraps

Author:Orson Scott Card

“When the kid began to flag, Riley picked her up, swung her onto his back, and kept running. The leopard in Mercy growled in approval - whatever his faults (and they were many and legend), Riley knew how to take care of the innocent.”

Care Running Kids Mercy Faults Take Care Innocent Legends Flags Approval Leopards

Book:Branded by Fire

Source: Branded by Fire

“People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one.”

People Enjoy Deserve Nationalism Flags Wall And Piece

Author:Banksy

“One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags and no countries and the only passport will be the heart”

Heart Country One Day Boundaries Borders Flags Passports No Boundaries

Author:Carlos Santana

“In my mind, President Snow should be viewed in front of marble pillars hung with oversized flags. It's jarring to see him surrounded by the ordinary objects in the room. Like taking the lid off a pot and finding a fanged viper instead of stew.”

Should Mind President Rooms Fronts Objects Findings Ordinary Snow Pot Flags Hung Marble Pillars Stew Vipers President Snow

Book:Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

“Courage~ What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz”

“He started to smile. “Are you waving the white flag?” “Not so fast. I’m saying we can take things slow. See if it blows up in our faces. I ’m not saying declare eternal love for each other while I fall back with my legs open.”

Ifs Faces Fall White Eternal Blow Legs Flags Fall Back Eternal Love White Flag

Book:One Foot in the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel

Source: One Foot in the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel

“It's strange how the human mind swings back and forth, from one extreme to another. Does truth lie at some point of the pendulum's swing, at a point where it never rests, not in the dull perpendicular mean where it dangles in the end like a windless flag, but at an angle, nearer one extreme than another? If only a miracle could stop the pendulum at an angle of sixty degrees, one would believe the truth was there.”

Ifs Mind Believe Humans Mean Doe Ends Lying Strange Degrees Miracle Extremes Dull Human Mind Flags Swings Sixty Angle Back And Forth Pendulums

Author:Graham Greene

“Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.”

Said Lasts Race Moral Principles Purity Coward Flags Refuge Wraps Moral Principles

Author:Umberto Eco

“We are very defensive, and therefore aggressive, when we hold on to a particular belief, a dogmas, or when we worship our particular nationality, with the rag that is called the flag.”

Belief Particular Worship Aggressive Flags Dogma Nationality Rags

Book:The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, (1966-1967): Perennial Questions

Source: The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, (1966-1967): Perennial Questions

“We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.”

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

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Flags Quotes