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Nationalism Quotes

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Nationalism Quotes

“Richard Wright and his Negro intellectual colleagues never realized the plain truth that no one in the United States understood the revolutionary potential of the Negro better than the Negro's white radical allies. They understood it instinctively, and revolutionary theory had little to do with it. What Wright could not see was that what the Negro's allies feared most of all was that this sleeping, dream-walking black giant might wake up and direct the revolution all by himself, relegating his white allies to a humiliating second-class status. The negro's allies were not about to tell the Negro anything that might place him on the path to greater power and independence in the revolutionary movement than they themselves had. The rules of the power game meant that unless the American Negro taught himself the profound implications of his own revolutionary significance in America, it would never be taught to him by anybody else. Unless the Negro intellectuals understood that in pursuit of this self-understanding, they would have to make their own rules, by and for themselves, nationalism would forever remain--as it was for Wright-- "a bewildering and vexing question.”

“England! Old England! in my love for thee No dream is mine, but blessed memory; Such haunting images and hidden fires Course with the bounding blood of British sires: From British bodies, minds, and souls I come, And from them draw the vision of their home. Awake, Columbia! scorn the vulgar age That bids thee slight thy lordly heritage. Let not the wide Atlantic’s wildest wave Burst the blest bonds that fav’ring Nature gave: Connecting surges ‘twixt the nations run, Our Saxon souls dissolving into one!”

“But what I would like to know," says Albert, "is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No." "I'm sure there would," I interject, "he was against it from the first." "Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people in the world had said No." "That's probable," I agree, "but they damned well said Yes." "It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Kropp, "we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?" "Perhaps both," say I without believing it. "Yes, well now," pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive me into a corner, "but our professors and parsons and newspapers say that we are the only ones that are right, and let's hope so;--but the French professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on their side, now what about that?" "That I don't know," I say, "but whichever way it is there's war all the same and every month more countries coming in." Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started. "Mostly by one country badly offending another," answers Albert with a slight air of superiority. Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. "A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat." "Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?" growls Kropp, "I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other--" "Then I haven't any business here at all," replies Tjaden, "I don't feel myself offended." "Well, let me tell you," says Albert sourly, "it doesn't apply to tramps like you." "Then I can be going home right away," retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh, "Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State--" exclaims Mller. "State, State"--Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, "Gendarmes, police, taxes, that's your State;--if that's what you are talking about, no, thank you." "That's right," says Kat, "you've said something for once, Tjaden. State and home-country, there's a big difference." "But they go together," insists Kropp, "without the State there wouldn't be any home-country." "True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren't asked about it any more than we were." "Then what exactly is the war for?" asks Tjaden. Kat shrugs his shoulders. "There must be some people to whom the war is useful." "Well, I'm not one of them," grins Tjaden. "Not you, nor anybody else here." "Who are they then?" persists Tjaden. "It isn't any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already." "I'm not so sure about that," contradicts Kat, "he has not had a war up till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous. You look in your school books." "And generals too," adds Detering, "they become famous through war." "Even more famous than emperors," adds Kat. "There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, that's certain," growls Detering. "I think it is more of a kind of fever," says Albert. "No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn't want the war, the others say the same thing--and yet half the world is in it all the same.”

“The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play.”

“Fugitive Peace (Sonnet 2219) In the opera of war, peace is fugitive - thinking soldiers are no good to state, either you kill without question, and grab your medal, or get discharged dishonorably. Thinking citizens are no good to democracy, either you obey blind or be branded a terrorist. Either you hold your mouth, mind and backbone, or be jailed as an anarchist. If you want to be an actor, don't go to film school, become an intern to some politician. Some say secularism is in their blood, some say liberty, all the while being the posterboys of persecution. No politician will prioritize peace, if they did, they would be out of business. War is the currency of political power - abandon fanaticism, and politicians go extinct.”

“Neighbor Before Nation (Sonnet 2201) Death of soldiers is PR goldmine for nationalist nutters, no matter the side, because it gives them the appetizing ammunition to sell some more fear, some more prejudice, some more fanatic tribalism, neighbor fighting neighbor, all wrapped in cute pills of patriotism - which ultimately manufactures some more orphans, some more widows, some more elderly who lose their hope. Trenches don't have a right side and wrong side, they only have one side, the side of dogma and lies. Asses to asses, cheek to cheek, apes laud the apes, declaring true apehood through their half-open flies.”

“Democracy on Drugs, Sonnet (Operation Opium) Revolution a day keeps corruption away, freethinking days prevent genocidal nights. Citizens without brain leads to democracy on drugs, paranoia is lifeblood for power-hungry parasites. Parasites thrive on gaslighting neighbors, peaceful coexistence is a threat to political power. Politicians remain safe through war and drought, it's the people who pay with blood, money and tears. Parasites don't have nationality, parasites don't have religion, parasites only have a bottomless hunger to keep the throne by calculated cleansing. Nationalism has nothing to do with culture, fundamentalism has nothing to do with religion. Win a war, lose a war, politicians lose nothing, living off domesticated sheep comatosed by opium.”

“The Great Superstition (Sonnet) Fundamentalists radicalize children for illegal terrorism, nationalists radicalize children for legal terrorism, I radicalize children for peace-n-oneness, using only their brain and backbone, without spilling the blood of human. Only leeches live by guns and call it honor, brainwashed by the witchcraft of patriotism. Fundamentalism, nationalism, these are the real witchcraft, still practiced by modern savages. Teachers, coppers, politicians, civil servants, all (most) mindlessly carry the paradigm of death. Give me a hundred humanitarian hearts, I'll wipe out the very concept of war. Pack your flags with other talismans, there is no greater superstition than the superstition of nation.”

“Fundamentalists radicalize children for illegal terrorism, nationalists radicalize children for legal terrorism, I radicalize children for peace-n-oneness... Give me a hundred humanitarian hearts, I'll wipe out the very concept of war. Pack your flags with other talismans, there is no greater superstition than the superstition of nation.”

“World War Peace (The Sonnet) The same paradigm that produces soldiers, produces terrorists. In fact, soldiers are just government approved terrorists. Till the military is the most dishonorable profession on earth, you can forget about world peace, forget about peaceful coexistence. Military are the real terrorists, regular terrorists are the byproducts, all manufactured by state leaders, sponsored by jungle civilians. Love of country is the root of all war, Every patriot is a potential terrorist. Learn to love the world as one country, The paradigm will shift from war to peace.”

“Diagnosis: Patriotism (The Sonnet) You know what distinguishes a reformist from a terrorist! The capacity to destroy the world, yet choosing not to. The capacity to press the button, yet choosing not to. The capacity to pull the trigger, yet choosing not to. The capacity to oblige the state, but choosing humanity instead. The capacity to be patriotic, yet choosing to be human instead. War is the symptom, patriotism is the disease. Terrorists harbor patriotism, Reformists harbor peace.”

“Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours, is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver. It reduces and at times erases the anxiety of individual consciousness. We abandon individual responsibility for a shared, unquestioned communal enterprise, however morally dubious.”

“Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. . . . Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

“Apes will talk (Naskaristana 2728) Every time a human disrupts convention, apes will talk. Every time a human chooses humanity over nation, apes will talk. Every time a human loves across culture and border, apes will talk. Every time a human marries same gender, apes will talk. Every time a human chooses to abort, apes will talk. Every time a human refuses misogyny and toxic masculinity, apes will talk. Apes will talk, and it hardly matters - opinion of the apes is irrelevant in human affairs.”

“Anti-fascism and a free society We stand for a thorough reconstruction of national life. Our political objective is the establishment of democratic freedom which will mean effective political power for the people. We strive not only for national freedom, but also for the social emancipation of the toiling masses. Our task is to spread enlightenment which will dispel obscurantism in the political and the spiritual life of the country. We advocate modernism in every walk of life against revivalism. We want the disinherited to come to their own and enjoy the richness and fullness of life on this earth. We want man to be the master of the world and the maker of his destiny.”

“A human, caught under the oppression of a foreign nation in his/her own country, can be willingly to risk his/her life in order to achieve freedom. To call this act a self-sacrifice, one would have to presume that the person didn’t mind living as a slave of the British. The selfishness of a person who is willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his/her freedom, lies in the fact that he/she is unwilling to go on living in a world where he/she is no longer able to act on his/her own rules and regulations, that is, a world where rudimentary human conditions of existence are no longer possible.”

“The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined.”

“In America, the materio-economic conditions relate to a societal, multi-group existence in a way never before know in world history. American Negro nationalism can never create its own values, find its revolutionary significance, define its political and economic goals, until Negro intellectuals take up the cudgels against the cultural imperialism practiced in all of its manifold ramifications on the Negro within American culture. But this kind of revolution would have to be predicated on the recognition that the cultural and artistic originality of the American nation is founded, historically, on the ingredients of a black aesthetic and artistic base.”

“It was from my uncle I learned all that I know of the early history of Scotland—of Wallace and Bruce and Burns, of Blind Harry's history, of Scott, Ramsey, Tannahill, Hogg, and Fergusson. I can truly say in the words of Burns that there was then and there created in me a vein of Scottish prejudice (or patriotism) which will cease to exist only with life. Wallace, of course, was our hero. Everything heroic centered in him. Sad was the day when a wicked big boy at school told me that England was far larger than Scotland. I went to the uncle, who had the remedy. "Not at all, Naig; if Scotland were rolled out flat as England, Scotland would be the larger, but would you have the Highlands rolled down?" Oh, never! There was balm in Gilead for the wounded young patriot. Later the greater population of England was forced upon me, and again to the uncle I went. "Yes, Naig, seven to one, but there were more than that odds against us at Bannockburn." And again there was joy in my heart—joy that there were more English men there since the glory was the greater.”

“Naskarnomics (Sonnet 2641) Ethics 101: do not take ethics lessons from America. Theology 101: do not take divinity lessons from the Vatican. Geopolitics 101: don't take democracy lessons from the West. Economics 101: don't take economy lessons from rich white men. Don't take innovation lessons from AGI companies. Don't take activism lessons from filmstars. Don't take yoga lessons from chakra salesmen. Do not take medical advise from influencers. Don't take feminism lessons from rich white women. Don't take masculinity lessons from chauvinist pigs. Don't take culture lessons from nationalists. Don't take religion lessons from fundamentalists. Don't take justice lessons from the bent. Don't ask life directions from the dead.”

“As once-colonized nations seek to stand on their own, the countries once denuded of their past seek to assert their independent identities through the objects that tie them to it. The demand for restitution is a way to reclaim history, to assert a moral imperative over those who were once overlords. Those countries still in the shadow of more powerful empires seek to claim the symbols of antiquity and colonialism to burnish their own national mythmaking.”

“When national ideals are confined to insignificant issues reflective primarily of a personal choice, there lies a problem of distorted priorities.”

“At worst, the centralizing effort to remove, where possible, homonymy — and antinomy — of a Peninsula that had always been subdivided into local communities and tiny States, gave vent to an unrestrained toponymical revision, that binned millennial heritage in the name of celebratory intentions, patriotic Risorgimental evocations and moralistic efforts. The two-year period that follows Unification can be defined as a period characterized by "a sort of gutting of street names, which ... disfigured to a certain degree the topographic structure of build-up areas", redrawing streets and squares, choosing heroes and models and consciously ignoring others.”