Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

I'm not really clear what the whole deal is with flags. I like my flag, but I wouldn't die for it. There's issues of identity, of course. That's going to always come in. I, for example, don't want to be called a 'North Britisher.' I want to be Scottish.

I am neither German or French but European.

… tribes with flags

What I believe is this: Catalunya is not Spain, it is something else and you have to feel it.

People aren't really afraid of my views. They are just afraid of the word 'nationalism.'

It always interested me that 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars,' when shown around the world, were referred to as British comedy. It was only here that they were referred to as Asian comedy, even though I always felt it was very British in its humour and structure.

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

I think it's unfair to criticise someone for not being Welsh, but the smaller the nation, the more patriotic you seem to be.

I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I'm an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists.

I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real.

Secessionists, whether in Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec or anywhere else, invariably assume that a person must either be Scottish or British, Catalan or Spanish, Quebecois or Canadian. What about those who feel they are both?

For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.

Just because I believe in the identity and integrity of my country doesn't make a xenophobe or a nationalist.

Four years ago in speaking of a Jewish nation one ran the risk of being regarded ridiculous. Today he makes himself ridiculous who denies the existence of a Jewish nation.

The Serbian people certainly will never be an obstacle for the Montenegrins to have their own country.

All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism.

I want my own country, not against Canada but for Quebec.

I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

I prefer people to see me as an Ivorian and as a patriot.

Language is at the root of Quebec nationalism.

A Volk [people] without a state is nothing, a lifelong frivolous phantom like the vagabond gypsies and Jews.

Nationalism springs, as often as not, from a wounded or outraged sense of human dignity, the desire for recognition.

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

Where new states have come into being, they have invariably swaddled themselves in sacred symbols and shibboleths forged in more dedicated struggles, beginning with an often random tricolor and a national anthem.