“Every great national literature is a fruit of much foreign sustenance and refreshment, however capable the national spirit may prove of mastering the foreign element.”

— Sidney Lee

"The French Renaissance in England" (1910), Preface

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Sidney Lee 8

English biographer and critic 1859–1926

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This statement produced the famous slogan "My country, right or wrong!" which itself produced famous responses by:
Carl Schurz "...if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."
Schurz, Carl, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287. See Wikisource for the complete speech.
G. K. Chesterton "'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'." -- A Defence of Patriotism
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“Every great national literature is a fruit of much foreign sustenance and refreshment, however capable the national spirit may prove of mastering the foreign element.”

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Sidney Lee 8

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