These national anthem quotes will inspire you. The national anthem, hymn, or song expresses patriotic sentiment and is either governmentally authorized as an official national hymn or holds that position in popular feeling.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging national anthem quotes, national anthem sayings, and national anthem proverbs.
Famous National Anthem Quotes
- “Well, my dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years.” ~ Harry Connick, Jr.
- “The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word “free” to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.” ~ Tony Kushner
- “I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask.” ~ Ronald Reagan
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“I was in the De Witt Clinton Hight School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood – except Americans.” ~ Robert Klein
- “Heartbreak is the national anthem. We sing it proudly.” ~ Taylor Swift
- “I had lots of breaks. I guess the one that got my foot in the door was singing the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in ’74.” ~ Reba McEntire
- “I knew we were in for a long season when we lined up for the national anthem on opening day and one of my players said, ‘Every time I hear that song I have a bad game.'” ~ Jim Leyland
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“I like traditions, and the national anthem is important.” ~ Kate Mara
- “All of us … should remember that no amount of flag-waving, pledging allegiance, or fervent singing of the national anthem is evidence that we are patriotic in the real sense of the word. … Outward behavior, while important, is not the real measure of a man’s patriotism.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “I’ve never been more nervous in my life than singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl.” ~ Kelly Clarkson
- “The national anthem of hell is, “I Did It My Way.”” ~ Peter Kreeft
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“If you think the last four words to the national anthem are ” gentleman, start your engines”, You might be a redneck.” ~ Jeff Foxworthy
- “If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem and you’re screwed.” ~ Lyle Lovett
- “There shall be a National Anthem containing incomprehensible words and a high note that normal humans cannot hit without risk of hernia.” ~ Dave Barry
- “At school my nickname is the National Anthem girl.” ~ Diana DeGarmo
- “”National Anthem” was just a funny idea I’d been knocking about. I initially thought about a beloved celebrity having to do that – and then I watched an episode of 24. In my head, I was writing almost a parody of a 24-style president woken in the middle of the night with a crisis. It seemed more interesting to play it ultrastraight and to have the viewer’s initial reaction be one of laughter and disbelief – and just have the whole thing become progressively more uncomfortable.” ~ Charlie Brooker
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“I sing the National Anthem, while I’m standing, over your body, hold you like a python.” ~ Lana Del Rey
- “The only thing I can cheer for in Philadelphia is the national anthem.” ~ Bill Belichick
- “[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical.” ~ George Orwell
- “It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label “Lebanese,” preferring the less restrictive “Levantine” designation.” ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- “It doesn’t take much to get me up for baseball. Once the National Anthem plays, I get chills. I even know the words to it now.” ~ Pete Rose
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“I will never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and I will raise a fist.” ~ Jesse Ventura
- “High national emotions are permissible when a soccer team is playing precisely because they are impermissible at most other times. There aren’t, simply, many other places where you can sing your national anthem until you lose your voice without causing a riot. In the context of soccer, flag-waving nationalism – even chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, flag-waving nationalism – is acceptable in Britain.” ~ Anne Applebaum
- “New England clam chowder, made as it should be, is a dish to preach about, to chant praises and sing hymns and burn incense before. […] It is as American as the Stars and Stripes, as patriotic as the national Anthem. It is Yankee Doodle in a kettle.” ~ Joseph C. Lincoln
- “in the newspapers, I read a biography about an American. He left his whole huge fortune to factories and for the positive sciences, his skeleton to the students at the academy there, and his skin to make a drum so as to have the American national anthem drummed on it day and night.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“The closest thing to Roseanne Barr’s singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered.” ~ Johnny Carson
- “When I first heard the song Don’t worry – be happy I realized it was exactly the kind of mindless philosophy that Americans would respond to. It would make a great national anthem along with Me first.” ~ George Carlin
- “Some write that I’m a genius, others say that I’m disrespectful towards their country… If you remember in 1993 I squatted to tie my shoe during the French national anthem.” ~ Hristo Stoichkov
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“You might be a redneck if you have started a petition to change the National Anthem to Georgia on My Mind.” ~ Jeff Foxworthy
- “I’m very excited to once again perform the National Anthem at Michigan International Speedway for the GFS Marketplace 400. The fans at MIS have always been great to me and it is always an honor to perform for them, whether it’s a concert or the National Anthem.” ~ Julie Roberts
- “My parents had a sidewalk cafe: every Sunday there was an accordion player and apparently I went through the motions, squeezing a shoebox. One of the regulars in ‘the cafe said to my father: “I think you should get your son an accordion-that’s what he’s trying to do, with that shoebox.” So they got me a little cardboard diatonic accordion-I still have it. I started to play the National Anthem, and things like that. It seems I was musically gifted-but my parents just never pushed in that direction.” ~ Toots Thielemans
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“Bobby Orr was a star when they played the National Anthem in his first game.” ~ Harry Sinden
- “… The Anarchists’ [national] anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of Camptown Races. Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.” ~ Mike Harding
- “It’s time for a new National Anthem. America is divided into two definite divisions. The easy thing to cop out with is sayin’ black and white. You can see a black person. But now to get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s getting’ to be old and young – not the age, but the way of thinking. Old and new, actually… because there’s so many even older people that took half their lives to reach a certain point that little kids understand now.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
- “[On the House Un-American Activities Committee] They’ll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.” ~ Humphrey Bogart
- “So . . . middle school? Awkward.Having a hobby that’s different from everyone else’s? Awkward. Singing the national anthem on weekends instead of going to sleepovers? More awkward. Braces? Awkward. Gain a lot of weight before you hit the growth spurt? Awkward. Frizzy hair, don’t embrace the curls yet? Awkward. Try to straighten it? Awkward!So many phases!” ~ Taylor Swift
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“The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem.” ~ Harry Sinden
- “It’s time for a new National Anthem. America is divided into two definite divisions. The easy thing to cop out with is sayin’ black and white. You can see a black person. But now to get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s getting’ to be old and young – not the age, but the way of thinking. Old and new, actually… because there’s so many even older people that took half their lives to reach a certain point that little kids understand now.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
- “And, you know, being able to wear the stars and stripes, when you step up on one of the blocks or, you know, when you step off of an airplane or when you hear the national anthem play, you know, it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world because you know that there are people at home who are supporting you and watching you.” ~ Michael Phelps
- “The most scared I’d ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again… just singing one song, the national anthem.” ~ Hugh Jackman
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“You will be pleased to know I stand obediently for the national anthem, though of course I would defend your right to remain seated should you so decide.” ~ Ira Glasser
- “My dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years. And when he opened his campaign headquarters back in the early ’70s, when I was 5 years old, my mother wanted me to play the national anthem. And they got an upright piano on the back of a flatbed truck and I played it.” ~ Harry Connick, Jr.
- “Twenty centuries of ‘progress’ have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high opinion of himself, but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment, nor a conviction that such capacity, rather than such density, is the true test of whether he is civilized.” ~ Aldo Leopold
- “If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers – normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free, Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.” ~ Ezra Taft Benson
- “I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling.” ~ Sidney Crosby
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“At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else.” ~ Jackie Robinson
- “Mitt Romney’s rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. ‘Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country’s national anthem.’ This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: ‘Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I’m torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I’m a rally observer, not a participant.'” ~ Ari Shapiro
- “There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking – the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting – that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food… A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles.” ~ Laurie Colwin
- “I am completely honest and truthful when I say I don’t want a gold for myself. I want a gold for the team. You go up there and do it as a collective group and it’s so much more satisfying, I mean you look around and you see the faces and just wow, this was a team effort and we did this together. It’s incredible and that’s my dream. I wanna win a gold medal and see the flag go up, hear the national anthem and just know that I did it with my brothers standing next to me.” ~ Jonathan Horton
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“The national anthem blows. Are you kidding me? Do any of you have it on your iPod?” ~ Daniel Tosh
- “I mean, when you think about it, it’s ‘bombs bursting in air,’ ‘rocket’s red glare,’ it’s all kinds of – you know a lot of national anthems are that way, too – all kinds of military jargon, and the land – there’s only one phrase ‘the land of the free,’ which is kind of nice, and ‘the home of the brave?’ I don’t know….Are we the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean, all the brave people live here I mean, it’s just stupid, I think. I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.” ~ Bill Press
- “No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It’s the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it’s the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That’s how real a dream can be and should be)” ~ James C. Collins
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“Now, the country is in a terrible state, and you’ve blamed it on a number of things: Unemployment rate, the value of the pound and all that… wrll, it’s because the national anthem is boring.” ~ Billy Connolly
- “Stupid National Anthem… Look at this flag; Two bears fighting over a pineapple. What kind of message does that send to the world? “Come to Belarus, where wild animals will steal your fruit.”” ~ Bill Bailey
- “I actually had that conversation with [Channel 4 Chief Creative Officer] Jay Hunt. We were at a bit of a crisis point. I’d written a totally different script – about war, basically – that got rejected at the last minute for various reasons. The whole of the series was in doubt. I said, “Well, there is one other idea [“National Anthem”].”” ~ Charlie Brooker
- “I mean, sometimes we do that, The National Anthem was a caustic satire and sometimes that’s the way to go with the story rather than me being particularly misanthropic.” ~ Charlie Brooker
