19 Quotes by Ernest Gellner

It is precisely by binding things together that traditional visions perpetuate themselves and the prejudgments contained within them; and it is by insisting on prising things apart that we have liberated ourselves from them

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

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

The strong belief that the interests of a particular nation-state are of primary importance. Also, the belief that a people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent nation, free of foreign domination.

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

Philosophy is explicitness, generality, orientation and assessment. That which one would insinuate, thereof one must speak.

The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.

Tribalism never prospers, for when it does, everyone will respect it as a true nationalism, and no-one will dare call it tribalism.

Just as every girl should have a husband, preferably her own, so every culture must have its state, preferably its own.