A Quote by Ernest Gellner

It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round.

Ernest Gellner

Quote Topics

Nationalism Nations Other Round Way Which

Quote Author

Ernest Gellner
British - Philosopher
December 9, 1925 - November 5, 1995

All nations teach their children to be "patriotic", and abuse the other nations for fostering nationalism.

Richard Aldington

... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.

David Mitchell

No serious historian of nations and nationalism can be a committed political nationalist... Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so.

Eric Hobsbawm

Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist.

Ernest Gellner

There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.

Todd Gitlin

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.

George Orwell

The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

Christopher Dawson

Here is the difference, nationalism has a certain connotation in Europe, which is not necessarily positive, but I think in Asia, nationalism is seen very much as a sort of natural corollary to economic progress, almost like you're independent, you progress, you are prosperous and nationalism comes with all of that.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar

I have always been conscious of the importance and the strength of nationalism, and this has led me straight to the acknowledgment of the nationalism of the Palestinian people. I believe there is no way around this: We have to have a solution based on two national states, which will hopefully live and grow together and establish a relationship between them in something like a European Union.

Uri Avnery

In the 19th century it was basically nationality and people trying to define their nationalism and create states which would reflect their nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution and we have fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well that's pretty much over.

Samuel P. Huntington

Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those "others". Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that.

Alija Izetbegovic

Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those 'others'. Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that.

Alija Izetbegovic

Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.