In brief, nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy, which requires the ethnic boundaries should not be cut across political ones, and, in part…

- Ernest Gellner

The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.

- Ernest Gellner

Industrial Society is not merely one containing 'industry,' large-scale productive units capable of supplying man's material needs in a way which can…

- Ernest Gellner

Philosophy is explicitness, generality, orientation and assessment. That which one would insinuate, thereof one must speak.

- Ernest Gellner

People are even more reluctant to admit that man explains nothing, than they were to admit that God explains nothing.

- Ernest Gellner

Capital, like capitalism, seems an overrated category.

- Ernest Gellner

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech …

- Ernest Gellner

I am a humble adherent of...Enlightenment Rationalist Fundamentalism.

- Ernest Gellner

Tribalism never prospers, for when it does, everyone will respect it as a true nationalism, and no-one will dare call it tribalism.

- Ernest Gellner