I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
Our fathers knew that the flag was never intended to protect any man who wanted to assail it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the idea that symbols of a nation, like its flag, are meant to be defended and respected, not to serve those who would harm them.
In this quote, Robert Green Ingersoll emphasizes the protective nature of patriotic symbols such as the flag. He suggests that these symbols carry a deeper meaning than mere representation; they embody the values and sacrifices made by those who have fought for the nation. Therefore, anyone who seeks to undermine or attack the flag does so against the very ideals it stands for, indicating a profound disrespect for the collective identity and history that the flag symbolizes.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about national pride, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of respecting what the flag represents.
More from Robert Green Ingersoll
All quotes βIf the guardians of society, the protectors of 'young persons,' could have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The voices that thrill the world would now be silent.
The religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and a curse. The religious argument that has to be supported by a musket is hardly worth making.
There is no slavery but ignorance.
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
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The word of man is the most durable of all material.
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.