“I recall the nomination of M. Poincaré seven years ago. It was almost a revolution…A man of great talent, sprung from a family of high morality and worthy in every respect…The coming of M. Poincaré was greeted as announcing the dawn of a new era. A patriotic policy was about to succeed a regime of diminution and debasement. It was expected that this Lorrainer, an orator, an upright man, a patriot…would revive the country…I do not hesitate to say that the total good in his activity is greater than the total of bad…he never weakened…his influence and his action were judicious, useful, and even very effective…Finally, if the country has maintained an honorable and worthy appearance, it is because he who represented it knew how to be worthy and honest himself.”

— Raymond Poincaré

Germain Bapst's diary entry (18 February 1920), quoted in Gordon Wright, Raymond Poincaré and the French Presidency (New York: Octagon Books, 1967), pp. 241-242.
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Raymond Poincaré 26

10th President of the French Republic 1860–1934

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“M. Poincaré has been a great, a very great president…Posterity…will ratify this judgment, and its admiration will increase with the revelation of documents in which the clear-sighted patriotism, the tenacity, the patience, the courageous confidence of the outgoing president are affirmed. It is known what he said…and he was an incomparable orator. It is hardly suspected how much good he did and how much evil he prevented, without ever departing from constitutional correctness.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Louis Barthou in L'Excelsior (18 February 1920), quoted in Gordon Wright, Raymond Poincaré and the French Presidency (New York: Octagon Books, 1967), p. 240, n. 36.
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“To describe means to classify, and the man Poincaré defies classification, as does indeed his philosophy.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse (1954), Ch. 1. The Iconoclast

“Though patriotism includes a sentimental, as it were a family, feeling for place, we can distinguish the ethical motive from the sentimental. At certain times in certain countries there has been a moral urgency to be patriotic when the actual or ideal policy of a man’s nation has been a sine qua non for his conscience. But to-day patriotism, in so far as it means subordination to a specifically national policy, is superannuated. This war, we assume, is not being fought-not by most of us-for any merely national end; we are fighting it, primarily and clearly, for our lives, and secondarily, and, alas! vaguely, for a new international order.”

Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) poet

"Traveller's Return", in Horizon, February 1941, Reprinted in David Pierce Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader. Cork University Press, 2000.

“Only now do I understand the harm done our nation's best interests by the rebuff administered to Poincaré's policy in 1924.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Léon Blum, quoted in Pertinax [André Géraud], The Gravediggers of France (1944), p. 374.
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“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 413

“He was a great patriot, a great man; above all, a great American. His country was the ruling, mastering passion of his life from the beginning even unto the end.”

Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) American statesman

Theodore Roosevelt, Address Before Congress (February 9, 1919).

“It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Edward Abbey, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." as written in "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness" (Vox Clamantis en Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal (1990), ISBN 0312064888.
Misattributed

“The most powerful figure in French politics after the retirement of Clemenceau was ex-President Poincaré. He disliked the Treaty [of Versailles] intensely. For several years after the withdrawal of Clemenceau, the policy of France was dominated by this rather sinister little man. He represented the vindictive and arrogant mood of the governing classes in France immediately after her terrible sacrifices and her astounding victory. He directly and indirectly governed France for years. All the Premiers who followed after Clemenceau feared Poincaré. Millerand was his creature. Briand, who was all for the League and a policy of appeasement, was thwarted at every turn by the intrigues of Poincaré. Under his influence, which continued for years after his death, the League became not an instrument of peace and goodwill amongst all men, including Germans; it was converted into an organisation for establishing on a permanent footing the military and thereby the diplomatic supremacy of France. That policy completely discredited the League as a body whose decisions on disputes between nations might be trusted to be as impartial as those of any ordinary tribunal in any civilised country. The obligations entered into by the Allies as to disarmament were not fulfilled. British Ministers put up no fight against the betrayal of the League and the pledges as to disarmament. Hence the Nazi Revolution, which has for the time—maybe for a long time—destroyed the hopes of a new era of peaceful co-operation amongst free nations.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume II (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 1410.
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“A: I think pain the greatest of all evils.
M: Greater than disgrace?
A: That indeed I dare not affirm; and yet I am ashamed to be so soon thrown down from my position.
M: It would have been a greater shame to have maintained it.”
A: Dolorem existimo maximum malorum omnium. M: Etiamne malus quam dedecus? A: Non audeo id dicere equidem, et me pudet tam cito de sententia esse deiectam. M: Magis esset pudendum, si in sententia permaneres.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, Chapter V; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

“The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.”

Carl Schurz (1829–1906) Union Army general, politician

"About Patriotism," Harper’s Weekly (16 April 1898)

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Raymond Poincaré 26

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