An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON NATIONALITY
The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent, and is modest about it.
James Agate (1877-1947, British author, critic)
Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill and calling for larger spurs and brighter beaks. I fear that nationalism is one of England's many spurious gifts to the world.
Richard Aldington (1892-1962, British poet, novelist, literary scholar writer)
There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.
James M. Barrie (1860-1937, British playwright)
All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity -- their links with their dead and the unborn.
John Berger (1926-, British actor, critic)
Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973, American novelist)
England is paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.
Robert Burton (1576-1640, British clergyman, scholar)
Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our homeland when we are about to lose it.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
It is easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881, Russian novelist)
Canada has never been a melting pot, more like a tossed salad.
Arnold Edinborough
I find that the Americans have no passions; they have appetites.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich.
Robert Frost (1875-1963, American poet)
Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.
Bob Geldof (1954-, Irish rock musician, philanthropist)
The Jews have always been students, and their greatest study is themselves.
Albert Goldman
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.
E. J. Hobsbawm (1917-, British historian)
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be adopted.
Dean William R. Inge (1860-1954, Dean of St. Paul's, London)
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.
John Paul II (1920, Polish-born Italian pope)
Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
The British have a remarkable talent for keeping calm, even when there is no crisis.
Franklin P. Jones
All the nationalists are wasms -- except one, the most powerful of this century, indeed, of the entire democratic age, which is nationalism.
John Lukacs
If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
Without country you have neither name, token, voice, nor rights, no admission as brothers into the fellowship of the Peoples. You are the bastards of Humanity. Soldiers without a banner, Israelites among the nations, you will find neither faith nor protection; none will be sureties for you. Do not beguile yourselves with the hope of emancipation from unjust social conditions if you do not first conquer a Country for yourselves.
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872, Italian patriot, writer)
We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.
Golda Meir (1898-1978, Israeli Prime Minister, 1969-74)
An Englishmen thinks seated; a Frenchmen standing; an American pacing, an Irishman, afterwards.
Austin O'Malley
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
George Orwell (1903-1950, British author, "Animal Farm")
No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country, "Thus far shalt thou go and no further."
Charles Stewart Parnell
Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.
Pope John XXIII (1881-1963, Italian head of Roman Catholic order)
The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive.
V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997, British author, critic)
The French work to live, but the Swiss live to work.
French Proverb (Sayings of French origin)
An Irishman is never at his best except when fighting.
Irish Proverb (Sayings of Irish origin)
Nations whose nationalism is destroyed are subject to ruin.
Muhammar Qaddafi (1942-, Libyan political and military leader)
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778, Swiss political philosopher, educationist, essayist)
Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think!
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
The English have a heavy hearted way of amusing themselves.
Author Unknown
The Irish ignore anything they can't drink or punch.
Author Unknown
The Britons are quite separated from all the world.
Virgil (c. 70 - 19 BC, Roman poet)
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