Erma Bombeck: "You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

Here are a couple of others that are not too bad, either:

Hamilton Fish: "If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace"

James G. Blaine: "The United States is the only country with a known birthday."

George Santayana: "A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world."

Bill Vaughan: "A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works."

Adlai Stevenson: "America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact—the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality."

John Quincy Adams: "All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse."

Paul Sweeney: "How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy."

Aurora Raigne: "America, for me, has been the pursuit and catching of happiness."