Analysis Quote by 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 prising things apart that we have liberated ourselves from them””

Ernest Gellner

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More 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…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Philosophy is explicitness, generality, orientation and assessment. That which one would insinuate, thereof one must speak.

Ernest Gellner

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