[I am a humble adherent of]...Enlightenment Rationalist Fundamentalism. - Ernest Gellner

America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.

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 and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

Obstruction of mobility, where it occurs, is one of the most serious and intractable problems of industrial society.