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

Civil Society is a cluster of institutions and associations strong enough to prevent tyranny, but which are, none the less, entered and left freely, rather than imposed by birth or sustained by awesome ritual. You can join the Labour Party without slaughtering a sheep.

America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.

People are even more reluctant to admit that man explains nothing, than they were to admit that God explains nothing.

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

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

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