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You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's
country, not to its institutions, or its office holders. The country is
the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing
to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous,
they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease
to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.
To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags--this
is loyalty to unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented
by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The first thing I want to teach is disloyalty till they get used to disusing
that word loyalty as representing a virtue. This will beget independence--which
is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty
to the general idols and fetishes. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human
soul in this world--and never will. |
Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick
men into being "loyal" to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true
loyalty should have been to themselves--in which case there would have ensured
a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
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