The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.
—Stanley Kubrick (1928–99) American Film Director, Writer, Film Producer, Photographer
Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.
—Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British Historian
All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity—their links with their dead and the unborn.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.
—Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American Economist, Social Critic
Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
France is the country where the money falls apart and you can’t tear the toilet paper.
—Billy Wilder (1906–2002) American Filmmaker
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Religion and nationalism, as well as any custom and any belief however absurd and degrading, if it only connects the individual with others, are refuges from what man most dreads: isolation.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world.
—Ralph Bunche (1903–71) American Political Scientist, Diplomat
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
—Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British Historian
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
—Stanley Kubrick (1928–99) American Film Director, Writer, Film Producer, Photographer
I am the state.
—Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) King of France
I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn’t want all the pills I’ve recommended, that’s up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife.
—Javier Perez de Cuellar (1920–2020) Peruvian & United Nations Diplomat
I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
The French work to live, but the Swiss live to work.
—French Proverb
I do not call the sod under my feet my country; but language—religion—government—blood—identity in these makes men of one country.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.
—Golda Meir (1898–1978) Israeli Head of State
There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another—and always into a better set—things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean—there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
An Englishmen thinks seated; a Frenchmen standing; an American pacing, an Irishman, afterwards.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.
—Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) Italian Catholic Religious Leader, Pope
Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.
—Humphry Davy (1778–1829) British Chemist, Inventor
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought—by force of circumstances, not argument—to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The United Nations was not set up to be a reformatory. It was assumed that you would be good before you got in and not that being in would make you good.
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) American Republican Public Official, Lawyer
There was never a nation that became great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
It is easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by “patriotism” I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one’s own nation, which is the concern with the nation’s spiritual as much as with its material welfare—never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbors.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist
Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The French complain of everything, and always.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France