Nationalism Quotes

Quotes relating to nationalism, patriotism, the purpose of the nation-state, nationality and identity in general.

In modern conditions, in which governments rarely enjoy a majority vote, most of us are living under governments of which we don't approve. We accept to be ruled by laws and decisions made by politicians with whom we disagree and whom we perhaps deeply dislike. How is that possible? Why don't democracies constantly collapse, as people refuse to be governed by those they never voted for? Clearly, a democracy has to be held together by something stronger than politics. There has to be a first-person plural, a pre-political loyalty, which causes neighbors who voted in opposing ways to treat each other as fellow citizens, for whom the government is not "mine" or "yours" but "ours," whether or not we approve of it. Roger Scruton, A Point of View, 13 July 2016
Nationalism remains, after two centuries, the most vital political emotion in the world - far more vital than social ideologies such as communism or fascism or even democracy. Arthur Meier Schlesinger. The Disuniting of America
A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others — which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively. This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Community of language, and community of religion, greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past. John Stuart Mill. Considerations on Representative Government
A nation is a being of a higher order, existing independently of those individuals of whom it is temporarily composed. It is not a physical being, with a head, arms, legs, eyes. It is a moral and historical entity, which lives and acts in human history, carrying its national symbols. Dimitrije Ljotić. The Ideals of Contemporary Youth (1942)
Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.
... it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities. John Stuart Mill. Considerations on Representative Government
Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn't be noticed - nationality did not really exist, only humanity. But in the camps, one learns: if you belong to a successful nation, you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity, too bad for you. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together (2002)
The universalist ideal rests on the belief that human beings are willing to share such a collective system with the rest of humanity. But evolutionary psychology suggests that humans have developed kin selection, those tribes with the strongest sense of in-group altruism being the most likely to survive. ... No universal altruism has evolved because a sense of universal altruism would have no evolutionary advantage. Garrett Hardin argued in a 1982 essay, 'Discriminating Altruisms', that a world without borders or distinctions is impossible, because groups that practise unlimited altruism will be eliminated in favour of those that limit altruistic behaviour to smaller groups, from whom they receive benefits. Ed West. The Diversity Delusion
Citizenship without emotional attachment is the civic equivalent of a one-night stand. Stanley Renshon. "Reforming Dual Citizenship in the United States"
The glue that holds this country together is a much maligned, wholly misunderstood psychological force: patriotism. Far from being the "last resort of scoundrels" ... it is the indispensable foundation of our attachments to each other and the institutions that form our national community. It is critically important that we understand what patriotism really is, and the role it plays in American public life. We cannot ask much of immigrants if we do not understand it ourselves. Stanley Renshon. The 50% American
There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means. Thomas Jefferson
Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans. Robert F. Kennedy. Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968

Nationality ... is to be thought of as a great spiritual reality, existing much less in the realm of the intellect than in the sentiments and emotions.

A certain amount of knowledge is inherent in nationality, but its real essence consists not in what one knows but in how one feels. Nationality is a composite body of ideas and ideals, beliefs, traditions, customs, habits, standards, and morals infused with loyalty, devotion, allegiance, and affection. A group of people who possess and are possessed by such a concrete mass of spiritual values embody that nationality, or, in a slightly different use of the word, constitute a nationality, or are a nationality.

Henry Pratt Fairchild. The Melting-Pot Mistake (1923)
Globalisation is all about wealth. It knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Without borders the world will become - is visibly becoming - a howling desert of traffic fumes, plastic and concrete, where nowhere is home and the only language is money. Peter Hitchens
The disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The geography of the nation is not so much territorial as imaginative, for it deals with what constitutes a people or a community ... The "rationality" of the nation is not theoretical in the conventional sense of the word, but akin to the rationality of art. Literary and historical narratives, as well as various other imaginative artifacts, set up and consolidate the logic of the nation. Women Writing in India: The twentieth century (1993)
As Chesterton has argued about patriotism generally, to condemn patriotism because people go to war for patriotic reasons, is like condemning love because some loves lead to murder. Besides which, men have killed in large numbers for faith and class - the crusade for equality has put more men in their graves than all religions combined - why single out nationhood? Ed West. The Diversity Delusion
Civilization is based on self-sacrifice. On the willingness of men to go out and die for what they believe in. When you get rid of that self-sacrifice, you get anarchy. Civilization is built because I am willing to give up something for my family, and the family is willing to give up something in order to have the town succeed. And the town is willing to give up something so the state can be in business, and the state is willing to give up something so the nation can succeed. Self-sacrifice is the first principle of civilization. George Lincoln Rockwell. American National Socialism
A movement based on economics will never inspire the passion or loyalty as one based on blood. It's because the Left has understood this that they've been able to remake America.
There won't be a successful Right, to say nothing of a "Revolution", until conservatives learn this lesson - and come to terms with their whiteness. Richard Hoste
In communities, individuals think of themselves in relation to the group, while in societies individuals only think of how to advance their own self-interest. Ferdinand Tonnies
National honor is national property of the highest value. The sentiment in the mind of every citizen is national strength. It ought therefore to be cherished. James Monroe, 5th U.S. President
If all the world is my brother, then I have no brother.
Alternative: If everyone is my brother, I have no brothers Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
We are a political and territorial species. Although Pollyannas push us to regard ourselves as members of one big happy human family, we compulsively clump into groups. These groups claim territory and, under normal circumstances, defend it. For westerners to passively accept and even abet incursions by foreigners so massive that the native-born are effectively surrendering their territory without a shot fired is biologically perverse. Lionel Shriver. "Would you want London to be overrun with Americans like me?". Spectator. 28 August 2021
I against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; my cousin, my brother and I against the world. Famous Arab saying
He who is devoted to everybody is devoted to nobody Casimir Delavigne
Freedom and justice demand that people and nations must be allowed to develop their own particular characteristics. Every people, every ethnic minority has its own identity, its own traditions and culture. These values are of great importance for human progress and for peace. John Paul II. Speech in Mainz, Germany. November 16, 1980
A nation that doesn't honor its past, has no future Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The essential contents of democracy is a people (Volk), not humanity. If democracy has to continue to be a political form, there are only democracies of peoples, and not democracies of humanity. Carl Schmitt
Another cause of revolution is difference of races which do not at once acquire a common spirit; for a state is not the growth of a day, neither is it a multitute brought together by accident. Hence the reception of strangers in colonies, either at the time of their foundation or afterwards, has generally produced revolution; Aristotle
A nation is a living soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the common possession of a rich heritage of memories; the other is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to preserve worthily the undivided inheritance which has been handed down .... The nation, like the individual, is the outcome of a long past of efforts, and sacrifices, and devotions .... To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together, to will to do the like again--such are the essential conditions for the making of a people.
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Community of interests is assuredly a powerful bond between men. But ... can interests suffice to make a nation? I do not believe it. Community of interests makes commercial treaties. There is a sentimental side to nationality; it is at once body and soul; a Zollverein is not a fatherland. Ernest Renan. "What is a Nation?" (1882)
But the curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fiber of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful. Theodore Roosevelt, The Dawn and Sunrise of History
Your ancestry is the only thing you can truly possess. Everything else is 'yours' by the agreement of those around you, and easily taken by force, but so long as you still exist, your ancestry resides in you. It is a thread to the eternal - followed through the past, and into the distant future.
Ancestral consciousness is what allows you to develop a goal beyond the material that lies outside of yourself. Although one can live to a personal code of ethics for whatever reason, it is preserving the thread of genetic memory that forms the foundation of those ethics. Abstractions are swept away before the facticity of a living, breathing people. Empty intellectualism is reduced to dead paper before loyalty to the tribe. The hypermorality of simple survival is the greatest morality, because the future belongs to those who show up for it. Buttercup, MY NATIONALIST PONY
The call of blood, history, faith, culture and memory is winning the struggle against Economism, the Western materialist ideology that holds that the desire for money and things is what ultimately motivates mankind. Patrick Buchanan, What Would Braveheart Do?
If Israel's ethnicity changes, the idea of Israel changes. If America's ethnicity changes, the idea of our country changes, too. Ann Coulter. Adios, America
It is ironic that those who seek to blend and destroy individual racial identities are the biggest enemies of diversity, while simultaneously claiming to support diversity. The end result of that form of diversity is the exact opposite of their stated goal: the destruction of individual identities and ultimately, the destruction of diversity. Arthur Kemp, Nova Europa
An economic union like the European Union is not a nation. An economy is not a country. An economic system should strengthen the bonds of national union, but the nation is of a higher order than the construct of any economist. A nation is organic; a nation is alive; a nation has a beating heart. A constitution does not create a nation. A nation writes a constitution that is the birth certificate of the nation already born in the hearts of its people. So it was with the American nation. For a nation to endure, its people must form a moral and a social community and share higher values than economic interests. Pat Buchanan. State of Emergency
If you worship your enemy, you are defeated.
If you adopt your enemy's religion you are enslaved.
If you breed with your enemy you are destroyed. Polydoros
The demand for self-determination - and self-rule in one's own territory - specifically excludes the traditional association of racial supremacy as rule over others.
Racial Supremacists (whose favorite iteration in leftist media terms is the "white supremacist" stereotype) seek to assert their supremacy over other races and to rule them.
A proponent of self-determination, on the other hand, seeks no such supremacy and specifically eschews the claim to rule over others.
Self-determination in one's own territory is therefore the very opposite of racial supremacism. In the European sense, the demand for self-determination is therefore, the very opposite of "white supremacism." Arthur Kemp (Nova Europa)
But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it, we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share; and since, as the Stoics hold, everything that the earth produces is created for man's use; and as men, too, are born for the sake of men, that they may be able mutually to help one another; in this direction we ought to follow Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents to cement human society more closely together, man to man. Cicero. De Officiis, 44 BC
The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young men under twenty-five. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The 1795 constitution, like its predecessors, was made for man. But there is no such thing as man in the world. During my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on ... but I must say, as for man, I have never come across him anywhere; if he exists, he is completely unknown to me. Joseph de Maistre. Considerations on France (1797)
A nation is defined not by institutions or borders but by language, religion, and high culture: in times of turmoil and conquest it is those spiritual things that must be protected and affirmed. Roger Scruton
In Catholic doctrine, death occurs when the soul departs the body, after which the body begins to decompose. So it is with nations. Patriotism is the soul of a nation. It is what keeps a nation alive. When patriotism dies, when a nation loses the love and loyalty of its people, the nation dies and begins to decompose. Pat Buchanan. State of Emergency
The present understanding of "European" by the reigning ideology at Brussels is inspired by French Jacobin ideology. This ideology makes no reference to an ethno-historical Great European people, only to a mass of disparate residents inhabiting European territory. This tendency needs to be radically replaced. Guillaume Faye. Why We Fight
MASS immigration is a form of institutionalised self-destruction. Leo McKinstry
He who trades his identity for money will one day wind up with neither. Jim Goad
Nationalism is patriotism. As has been said before, the family, as 'unit', instills those values of leadership and group responsibility in the nascent stage of national responsibility - this is Patriotism. It is the patriots reason, for being, in protecting and establishing those things which he was taught and, hopefully, believes in as being right and noble, enough so, that he would give his very life- blood for. The true patriot, as nationalist, contains all that is carried in the soul, the race-soul, of any given people. There are no boundaries, racial or otherwise, in the love that an individual feels for his own kind, for the laughter of the children bourne by his sisters, and the faith of his fathers he shares with his brothers. His faith, which begets his feelings, such as that of primitive man, follows his morality in conceptualizing such things as tribe, duty, loyalty, honour, and all those things which make up the 'greater self', that extended part of 'what' he is, or at least sees himself as; he exists as a part of the total familial cycle. This is the highest form of citizenship. Rise of the West
Finally, we are all subject to Nature's Laws. A people can choose to pursue the upward course, honoring and following the most intelligent, the most courageous and the most beautiful. If so, they will survive and preserve their best traits. Or they can love the weak, the ugly, the misfit and nature's errors. That is the road to extinction. "Equality" is the pursuit of the lowest common denominator, and its pursuit is the destruction of excellence. We must be a people with a vision, seeing ourselves as a whole folk, rather than individuals suffering a slow and humiliating end. Choose life and struggle, or accept ignoble death. David Lane
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. George Orwell
He who save his country violates no law Napoleon Bonaparte
If a gentleman happens to be born in a stable, it does not follow that he should be called a horse. Daniel O'Connell
He who follows Tradition remains faithful to his ancestral heritage by perceiving the divine in all moments of his life, thus bearing witness to the values of truth, justice, loyalty and honour. Inner dedication to traditional principles leads to a genuine awareness that shapes one's life by infusing it with a higher significance. Raido, A Handbook Of Traditional Living
Tradition thus also stands for the preservation of the memory and identity of one's folk, which must constantly be renewed. Subversion, by contrast, represents oblivion: the loss of identity, and the rejection of any continuity with the past and any future prospect. Raido, A Handbook of Traditional Living