I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the fleeting nature of patriotism and the ultimate futility of loyalty to a flawed system.
Ernest Hemingway's quote critiques the romanticized view of patriotism by highlighting that, ultimately, all patriots share a common fate in death, rendering their loyalty meaningless after they pass. He suggests that true patriotism is often misrepresented and can lead to a decline in artistic expression, as loyalty to an established order may hinder one's creativity and authenticity, urging that if one aims to be a 'great patriot', they must do so without losing their spirit and individuality to the prevailing government.
In practice
In a discussion on literature's role in politics during a seminar.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
You've seen what you've seen; you've felt what you've felt. Ideology is for people who don't trust their own experiences and perceptions of the world.
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.
Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary.
Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there
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