Love was left out

Brazil’s first flag was designed by Jean-Baptiste Debret, a French painter, upon independence from Portugal in 1822. The yellow rhomboid honors Brazil’s first empress, a Habsburg, and the green background honors Brazil’s Braganza emperor.

With the fall of the monarchy in 1899, the coat of arms was swapped for an orb with the positivist motto “Love, Order and Progress” — but “Love” was left out because of a lack of space.

The motto “Ordem e Progresso” is derived from Auguste Comte’s motto of positivism:

“L’amour pour principe et l’ordre pour base; le progrès pour but”
(“Love as a principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal”)

In 2021, the movement “Amor na Bandeira” (in English, Love in the Flag) proposed to update the flag’s motto from “Ordem and Progresso” to “Amor, Ordem e Progresso” (Love, Order and Progress). 

The precise positions of the 27 stars on the globe make the Brazilian flag one of the most complicated national flags to construct.