Humble Quotes by Ernest Gellner

Nowledge which... transcends the bounds, the prejudices and prejudgements of any one society and culture is not an illusion but, on the contrary, a…

— Ernest Gellner

Obstruction of mobility, where it occurs, is one of the most serious and intractable problems of industrial society.

— 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…

— Ernest Gellner

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend,…

— Ernest Gellner

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

— Ernest Gellner

“One persistent attempt to find a thread in the history of mankind focuses on the notion of Reason. Human history, on this view, is…

— Ernest Gellner

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

— Ernest Gellner

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

— Ernest Gellner

Civil Society is a cluster of institutions and associations strong enough to prevent tyranny, but which are, none the less, entered and left freely,…

— Ernest Gellner

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

— Ernest Gellner

In brief, nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy, which requires the ethnic boundaries should not be cut across political ones, and, in particular,…

— Ernest Gellner

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

— Ernest Gellner