The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not ‚Am I really that oppressed?‘ but ‚Am I really that boring?‘

Part of the core information that I’ve been purveying is that identity politics is a sick game. You don’t play racial, ethnic, and gender identity games. The Left plays them on behalf of the oppressed, let’s say, and the Right tends to play them on behalf of nationalism and ethnic pride. I think they’re equally dangerous.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can’t be English American. Why not?

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

Babylon is everywhere. You have wrong and you have right. Wrong is what we call Babylon, wrong things. That is what Babylon is to me. I could have born in England, I could have born in America, it make no difference where me born, because there is Babylon everywhere.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.

Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism – and wars.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.

Only Americans can hurt America.

The idea that putting Americans ‚first‘ requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

I am confident my Hindutva face will be an asset when dealing with foreign affairs with other nations.

We have an idea that we Americans are God’s chosen people, that God loves us more than any other people, and that we are God’s blessed. I tell you that God doesn’t love us any more than He does the Russians.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

Be proud to be Latino and never lose that pride!

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Sikhs. I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Christians. All the citizens, all the voters, are my countrymen.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.