QUESTION: I am looking for the origin of or Chesterton reference to the idea that someone saying “My Country, right or wrong,” is like saying “My mother, drunk or sober.”
ANSWER: The line is from Chesterton’s first book of essays, The Defendant (1901) from the chapter, “A Defence of Patriotism”:
“‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.'”