“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours.”

—  William Ralph Inge

The End of an Age: and other essays (1948), p. 127

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours." by William Ralph Inge?
William Ralph Inge photo
William Ralph Inge18
Dean of St Pauls 1860–1954

Related quotes

“The nationality of an army is that of its political leadership, not of its common soldiers or its officer corps.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

The Enemy of Europe (1953)

George H. W. Bush photo

“No nation can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look with clear eyes at all the glories and disgraces, too, of the past. We, in the United States, acknowledge such an injustice in our own history: The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be repeated.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Observing the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, December 7 1991 http://www.navy.mil/navco/pages/2001/01pg-017-ph-bush120791.htm

Anton Chekhov photo

“Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Alternate translation: Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.
Also quoted in Psychologically Speaking: A Book of Quotations, Kevin Connolly and Margaret Martlew, 1999, p. 96
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“I shall treat anarchism, despite its many variations: as a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly — for this is the common element uniting all its forms — at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of non-governmental cooperation between free individuals.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

Prologue
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Context: It is the general idea put forward by Proudhon in 1840 that unites him with the later anarchists, with Bakunin and Kropotkin, and also with certain earlier and later thinkers, such as Godwin, Stirner, and Tolstoy, who evolved anti-governmental systems without accepting the name of anarchy; and it is in this sense that I shall treat anarchism, despite its many variations: as a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly — for this is the common element uniting all its forms — at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of non-governmental cooperation between free individuals.

George W. Bush photo

“The United Nations is an organization of extraordinary potential. As the United Nations rebuilds its headquarters, it must also open the door to a new age of transparency, accountability, and seriousness of purpose. With determination and clear purpose, the United Nations can be a powerful force for good as we head into the 21st century. It can affirm the great promise of its founding.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Source: Recollections on the French Revolution

Nicolás Maduro photo

“Yesterday, the President of the United States, in this very platform, threatened the governments of the world to submit to its designs, to its orders and to cooperate with its policies in the United Nations system, or he would act accordingly. Venezuela has been attacked with a fierce diplomatic offensive at all of the United Nations system bodies, supported by satellite kneeled governments blackening the honor of the peoples that they are called to represent.”

Nicolás Maduro (1962) 53rd President of Venezuela

President Maduro's speech at the United Nations General Assembly (excerpts), 26 September 2018

Glenn Greenwald photo

“The national religion in the United States is worship of all things military. And journalists are its high priests.”

Glenn Greenwald (1967) American journalist, lawyer and writer

interview with Democracy Now! (November 14, 2012). Glenn Greenwald: While Petraeus Had Affair with Biographer, Corporate Media Had Affair with Petraeus. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/14/glenn_greenwald_while_petraeus_had_affair Retrieved on 2012-11-15.

Sri Aurobindo photo

“This dynamic following after the highest spiritual truth and the highest spiritual aim are the uniting bond of Indian religion and, behind all its thousand forms, its one common essence.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)
Context: Differences of credal belief are to the Indian mind nothing more than various ways of seeing the one Self and Godhead in all. Self-realisation is the one thing needful; to open to the inner Spirit, to live in the Infinite, to seek after and discover the Eternal, to be in union with God, that is the common idea and aim of religion, that is the sense of spiritual salvation, that is the living Truth that fulfils and releases. This dynamic following after the highest spiritual truth and the highest spiritual aim are the uniting bond of Indian religion and, behind all its thousand forms, its one common essence.

Related topics