“People not only live by symbols, but die by them, as wars of religion and nationalism attest.”

— A. C. Grayling

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 4, “Symbols” (p. 19)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 2, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People not only live by symbols, but die by them, as wars of religion and nationalism attest." by A. C. Grayling?

A. C. Grayling 24

English philosopher 1949

Related quotes

“Broad views about life have shrunk into religions, and we have been turned into their symbols. They regard us as empty symbols. Symbols of a religion, a nation. We mustn’t be trapped by that. In this war, let that be the ground of your contest. A ground that cannot be reduced to definition and detail.”

Urvashi Butalia (1952) Feminist and historian

Urvashi Butalia, Katha: Short Stories by Indian Women

“National loyalty involves a love of home and a preparedness to defend it; nationalism is a belligerent ideology, which uses national symbols in order to conscript the people to war.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

England and the Need for Nations (2006)

“It will not benefit the world if we succeed in banishing the old-fashioned wars of nations only to clear the board for social and doctrinal wars of even greater ferocity and destructiveness. This, indeed, is a growing danger. We were told that the old wars of religion had ended, but that is not much comfort if the wars of various kinds of secular religions or non-God religions are to begin and are to make Europe the arena of their hideous conflict, and if all that makes life worth living to the mass of the people is to be destroyed in the process.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I Ask You—What Price Freedom? Answers, 24 October 1936.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 364. ISBN 0903988429
The 1930s

“Only a dead nation remembers its heroes when they die. Real nations respect them when they are alive.”

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–1988) Indian independence activist

Zareef, Adil Saturday, (January 28, 2006) The Demise of a Dream. The Daily Times https://archive.is/20130416144347/www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2006%5C01%5C28%5Cstory_28-1-2006_pg7_35

“[People] always tell me, “Weiwei, leave the nation, please.” Or “Live longer and watch them die.” Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, The City: Beijing, 2011

“…most of the people in a war never fight for even a minute—though they bear for years and die forever. They do not fight, but only starve, only suffer, only die: the sum of all this passive misery is that great activity, War.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Poetry in War and Peace”, p. 129
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

“That's why the peoples have to die -- so that the Jew can live. He drives the peoples to war to make a profit from the fratricide of the white race.
In the World War 11 million gentiles had to die. The Jew was the winner.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Deswegen müssen die Völker sterben, damit der Jude leben kann. Er hetzt die Völker zum Krieg, um aus dem Brudermord der weißen Rasse Gewinn zu ziehen.
Im Weltkrieg mussten 11 Millionen Nichtjuden sterben. Der Jude aber war der Sieger.
05/20/1932, speech in the Hercules Hall in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)

“To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Deutsches Requiem

"Deutsches Requiem" as translated by Julian Palley (1958)

“Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Lyrics, Imagine (1971 album)

“Most people: they take birth. Earn a living, and, then, they die. Never follow them.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

“People not only live by symbols, but die by them, as wars of religion and nationalism attest.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

A. C. Grayling 24

Related quotes

Related topics