Despite the on-going preparations for Merdeka celebrations , the question of whether nationalism and patriotism is a good thing remains debatable.

Perhaps before we condemn those who fail to show sufficient flag-waving sentiments, we should pause a while and think about what patriotism really means and what it says about us.

The following are a collection of quotes illustrating the varied perspectives on nationalism; what may seem acceptable on a local scale may not be so on a global scale.

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles. - George Jean Nathan

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! - Albert Einstein

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. - George Santayana

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him . - Bible

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect. - Eric Hoffer

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

- George Bernard Shaw

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? - Pablo Casals

He is not one of us who calls for 'asabiyyah', (nationalism) or who fights for 'asabiyyah' or who dies for 'asabiyyah' - as narrated by Abu Dawud

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours. - William R. Inge

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. - Albert Einstein

To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family. - Buddha

Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting. - S.I. Hayakawa

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. - Bible

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. - George Bernard Shaw

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars. - Arthur C Clarke

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world. - Socrates

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. - Baha'u'llah

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress. - Thorstein Veblen