Loyalty

Being loyal; to person or a cause is a virtue. It gives meaning to life. But a word of caution. You have to decide whether the cause or the person (friend, spouse, anyone) really deserves your loyalty. Listen to your heart. Gandhi called it your inner voice. Judge it against your value system. Then decide to be loyal.

Being loyal to a false cause or a false person can be disastrous. Take the example of German soldiers during World War Two. ( I do not talk of men of the SS and Gestapo. I talk of the ordinary German soldier who loved Germany) The German army then was considered among the best in the world. The soldiers were fiercely loyal to each other to Hitler and to their country. That gave them extraordinary courage to fight against overwhelming odds. But they were loyal to a false cause. Nazism. To a false prophet. Hitler. I respect the German soldier of WW2 and grieve at their tragic end. Most were killed by the end of the war.

The point is be careful in choosing the object of your loyalty. It is no sin to be disloyal to a friend who is hardly your friend. President John F. Kennedy rightly said that do not think what the country does for you but what you can do for your country. Being loyal to your country is sublime. Because America is good, its principles are good, what it stands for is good. Being loyal to your country is the best thing one can do.

The quotes below say the same thing which we have discussed above.

I believe patriotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief.
Jesse Ventura

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
George William Curtis

A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.
Joyce Maynard

The point we made earlier. Deserving the loyalty.

An intelligent and conscientious opposition is a part of loyalty to country.
Bainbridge Colby

Being loyal to America can be done without thinking. It deserves your loyalty. But the government... Judge it. Does it deserve your loyalty with its actions and deeds?

Loyalty is an integral part of love.

Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
Ann Landers

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain

The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith.
Confucius

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
Elbert Green Hubbard

Unless you can find some sort of loyalty, you cannot find unity and peace in your active living.
Josiah Royce

Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.
Janet Robinson

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
Mario Puzo