Ernest GellnerThinkers

Civil society is a set of institutions strong enough to counterbalance the state without preventing it from fulfilling its role as keeper of peace.

Myth is capable of vividly highlighting the values and principles by which we think... not the devious paths by which we reached our condition.

The Nation is bound together by a broadly-understood idea of kultur that includes, inter alia, shared language, ethnicity, habits, rituals and religion.

The Nation is engendered by nationalism, and not the other way round.

Nationalism is that which engenders nations, and not the other way round.

Tradition is defined such that one who understands the notion in relation to his activities has eaten of the tree of knowledge, and so can no longer fully exemplify it. In explaining the limits of his alleged position, he constantly transcends it and thereby contradicts it: The real traditionalist does not know himself to be one.

Tradition is blind to itself. The real traditionalist does not know himself to be one.