Nationalists Quotes

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, 'although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,' wrote Orwell, tends to be 'uninterested in what happens in the real world.' Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism 'has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.'

A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“Arab nationalism in its traditional form was the way in which secular Arab Christians like Edward had found and kept a place for themselves, while simultaneously avoiding the charge of being too 'Western.' It was very noticeable among the Palestinians that the most demonstrably 'extreme' nationalists—and Marxists—were often from Christian backgrounds. George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh used to be celebrated examples of this phenomenon, long before anyone had heard of the cadres of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad. There was an element of overcompensation involved, or so I came to suspect.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that "it can't happen here," which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“When you wipe out your national allegiance, the whole world becomes your family, and then you start to see the real face of each nation, including their strongholds as well as their shortcomings.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“All nationalism is nazism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Fundamentalism and nationalism turn the brain into broccoli.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“...I'm smiling because you and all nationalists always rant and rave about the fundamentalists and act as though you're so different. And yet you're just two sides of the same coin.”
― Marc-Uwe Kling, QualityLand

“There is no greater superstition than the superstition of nation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim