Nationalism Quotes (5 quotes)
Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.
From Essays on Human Evolution (1946, 1947), 76.
If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say I am a German and Germany will declare I am a Jew.
In Speech (6 Apr 1922) to the French Philosophical Society, Sorbonne. Quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Quotable Einstein (1996), 8.
Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.
In Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, The Human Side (1979), 38. The full provenance of this quote is not fully known. The editors cite that it was used by a South American writer as a motto on his letterhead, with attribution to Einstein. The editors judged it to be authentic, as it is fully consistent “since it faithfully echoes frequent conversational remarks made
by Einstein.”
The only condition more appalling, less practical, than world government is the lack of it in this atomic age. Most of the scientists who produced the bomb admit that. Nationalism and the split atom cannot coexist in the planet.
In 'Talk of the Town', The New Yorker (1 Jun 1946), 17.
We do live in a conceptual trough that encourages such yearning for unknown and romanticized greener pastures of other times. The future doesn’t seem promising, if only because we can extrapolate some disquieting present trends in to further deterioration: pollution, nationalism, environmental destruction, and aluminum bats. Therefore, we tend to take refuge in a rose-colored past ... I do not doubt the salutary, even the essential, properties of this curiously adaptive human trait, but we must also record the down side. Legends of past golden ages become impediments when we try to negotiate our current dilemma.
…...
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
