Patriotism (appreciating and a commitment to one’s country) is not the same as nationalism (believing that one’s country is better than all others). Embracing the latter means a focus on national self-interest whether it is damaging to another country or not. It has often been historically marked by an oppression of another country for the benefit of one’s own. For fervent nationalists, allegiance to country usually comes before everything else, including God and family.
The following quotes speak for themselves.
“Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer
“Nationalism is an infantile thing. It is the measles of mankind.” ― Albert Einstein
“So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.” ― Voltaire
“If one harbors anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, though in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.” ― George Orwell
“Nationalism among nations is like racism among races.” ― Oliver Markus Malloy
“Feed them a few lies encapsulated in patriotism and they will not mind electing even a pompous and megalomaniacal bully as their representative.” ― Abhijit Naskar
“Can't you see? They stuffed out the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, and their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism, their stupidity, their greed of business, and then paraded it before us a shining ideal! And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous, a larger life.” ― Erich Maria Remarque
