Faith & Spirit Quote by Edgar Watson Howe

Stubbornness, Howe suggests, is the real flag most men die for: not the stitched fabric of nation, not the metaphysical promise of religion, but the private, bruised ego that refuses to yield. The line works because it flips the usual hierarchy of motives. We like to imagine ourselves animated by lofty loyalties. Howe, an editor by trade and a diagnostician of public hypocrisy by necessity, drags the spotlight down to the smaller, more embarrassing engine: persistence as vanity.

The intent is less to praise grit than to expose how easily conviction masquerades as principle. “His stubbornness” is possessive and intimate; it isn’t a creed shared with others, it’s a personal property that must be defended. Religion and country, by contrast, are collective stories - big containers people borrow to explain their choices. Howe implies that the fiercest sacrifices often happen not when someone believes in God or homeland, but when someone feels challenged, cornered, or corrected.

There’s a newsroom context embedded here. Editors watch public figures wrap self-interest in moral language, and they watch ordinary people turn arguments into identity. Stubbornness is a cheap, renewable fuel: it doesn’t require evidence, only friction. The subtext is bleakly comic: the human animal will rationalize almost anything after the fact, and “patriotism” or “faith” can become the decorative ribbon tied around a simpler impulse - I can’t admit I was wrong.

Read today, it lands as a warning about political tribalism and internet certainty: the cause isn’t always the cause; sometimes it’s just the sunk cost of pride.