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Michael Ignatieff Quotes

I distinguish, between nationalism and patriotism Picture Quote #1

I’d always admired the intellectuals who had made the transition into politics - Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Carlos Fuentes in Mexico - but I knew that many of them had failed, and in any event, I wasn’t exactly in their league Picture Quote #1

Living fearlessly is not the same as never being afraid. It’s good to be afraid occasionally. Fear is a great teacher Picture Quote #1

I can’t think of this country without Quebec. Je parle francais. And when I think about being a Canadian, speaking French is part of it Picture Quote #1

Intellectuals are good at seeing the big picture. But they are not so good at process Picture Quote #1

The Prince’s blunt candor has been a scandal for 500 years. The book was placed on the Papal Index of banned books in 1559, and its author was denounced on the Elizabethan stages of London as the ‘Evil Machiavel.’ The outrage has not dimmed with time Picture Quote #1

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The medium’s gaze is brief, intense, and promiscuous. The shelf life of the moral causes it makes its own is brutally short Picture Quote #1

After spending the 1980s building up Saddam’s Iraq as a counterweight to Iran, U.S. policy abruptly reversed course with his invasion of Kuwait and has since tried to cut him down to size. The policy is called ‘containment,’ but the question is, containment of what? Picture Quote #1

I had the vocation for politics. What I didn’t have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It’s never personal: It’s just business. It was ever thus Picture Quote #1

Commerce has changed the ethics of citizenship and the incentives for national service. America now buys private contractors - we used to call them mercenaries - to do the country’s fighting Picture Quote #1

What everybody forgets is that when I was a journalist in Britain and in the United States, I was always a Canadian. And the price of expatriation does not go down, it goes up. I never felt part of the political common sense of Britain. I never felt it in the United States. I had no natural home in Britain and the U.S Picture Quote #1

The core of human rights work is naming and shaming those who commit abuses, and pressuring governments to put the screws to abusing states. As a result, human rights conventions are unique among international law instruments in depending for their enforcement mostly on the activism of a global civil society movement Picture Quote #1

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The legitimacy of coercive acts in a democracy arises from the process by which they are justified and by the degree to which we regard decisions as rational. If the justifications proceed properly, through recognized public institutions, and if they make sense to us, they are legitimate Picture Quote #1

America owed its military renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s to Vietnam. Veterans like Norman Schwartzkopf, Colin Powell, Alfred Grey, Charles Krulak, and Wesley Clark returned home angry and ashamed at their defeat and rebuilt all-volunteer, professional armed forces from the ground up Picture Quote #1

Canadians want a country. They don’t want a community of communities. I’m committed to the national unity of the country Picture Quote #1

If the only people who can succeed in politics are people who go in at 25, that’d be too bad. That’d be a shame Picture Quote #1

Free societies, which allow differences to speak and be heard, and live by intermarriage, commerce, and free migration, and democratic societies, which convert enemies into adversaries and reconcile differences without resort to violence, are societies in which the genocidal temptation is unlikely and even inconceivable Picture Quote #1

Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition warfare Picture Quote #1

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Desert Storm was seen by the military establishment and by some politicians as avenging Vietnam, but it left behind dangerous illusions. The victory was so decisive, and information about it so carefully managed, that the American public was never clearly informed that it was purchased at the price of approximately 100,000 Iraqi lives Picture Quote #1

Conservatives believe that international institutions such as the United Nations are anti-American and anti-Israeli cabals. Progressives do not like the economic medicine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank force down the throats of developing countries Picture Quote #1

I’m not tribal Labour. I’m a Liberal at heart. Different tradition, different language Picture Quote #1

What’s distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn’t care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn’t worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call ‘the problem of dirty hands.’ Picture Quote #1

Not even a superpower can hold onto its economic sovereignty if it fails to get its fiscal house in order, and no one needs a well-regulated international economic order more than the United States Picture Quote #1

Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People’s Republic of China and in Putin’s police state Picture Quote #1

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The detention of Japanese Americans during World War II would qualify as an example of majoritarian tyranny and misuse of executive prerogative, driven by fear and racial bias Picture Quote #1

Lincoln was not an intellectual, but no one in 200 years understood the language of the King James Bible or learned Blackstone’s Laws of England, or Cicero, or the language of the Founding Fathers, better than he did Picture Quote #1

Belief in liberal freedom and democracy is always belief in it in a particular place, in a national home with histories that only those who are born in a place or who adopt its citizenship can hope to understand Picture Quote #1

In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with Picture Quote #1

I went into politics thinking that, if I made arguments in good faith, I’d get a hearing. It’s a reasonable assumption, but it’s wrong. In five and a half years in politics up north, no one really bothered to criticize my ideas, such as they were. It was never my message that was the issue. It was always the messenger Picture Quote #1

When we say, even in a global village, that all politics is local, we mean that national sovereignties are the only reliable source of political authority Picture Quote #1

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Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

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Text Quotes

I distinguish, between nationalism and patriotism (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) I’d always admired the intellectuals who had made the transition into politics - Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Carlos Fuentes in Mexico - but I knew that many of them had failed, and in any event, I wasn’t exactly in their league. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Living fearlessly is not the same as never being afraid. It’s good to be afraid occasionally. Fear is a great teacher. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) I can’t think of this country without Quebec. Je parle francais. And when I think about being a Canadian, speaking French is part of it. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Intellectuals are good at seeing the big picture. But they are not so good at process. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) The Prince’s blunt candor has been a scandal for 500 years. The book was placed on the Papal Index of banned books in 1559, and its author was denounced on the Elizabethan stages of London as the ‘Evil Machiavel.’ The outrage has not dimmed with time. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) The medium’s gaze is brief, intense, and promiscuous. The shelf life of the moral causes it makes its own is brutally short. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) After spending the 1980s building up Saddam’s Iraq as a counterweight to Iran, U.S. policy abruptly reversed course with his invasion of Kuwait and has since tried to cut him down to size. The policy is called ‘containment,’ but the question is, containment of what? (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) I had the vocation for politics. What I didn’t have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It’s never personal: It’s just business. It was ever thus. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Commerce has changed the ethics of citizenship and the incentives for national service. America now buys private contractors - we used to call them mercenaries - to do the country’s fighting. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) What everybody forgets is that when I was a journalist in Britain and in the United States, I was always a Canadian. And the price of expatriation does not go down, it goes up. I never felt part of the political common sense of Britain. I never felt it in the United States. I had no natural home in Britain and the U.S. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) The core of human rights work is naming and shaming those who commit abuses, and pressuring governments to put the screws to abusing states. As a result, human rights conventions are unique among international law instruments in depending for their enforcement mostly on the activism of a global civil society movement. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) The legitimacy of coercive acts in a democracy arises from the process by which they are justified and by the degree to which we regard decisions as rational. If the justifications proceed properly, through recognized public institutions, and if they make sense to us, they are legitimate. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) America owed its military renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s to Vietnam. Veterans like Norman Schwartzkopf, Colin Powell, Alfred Grey, Charles Krulak, and Wesley Clark returned home angry and ashamed at their defeat and rebuilt all-volunteer, professional armed forces from the ground up. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Canadians want a country. They don’t want a community of communities. I’m committed to the national unity of the country. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) If the only people who can succeed in politics are people who go in at 25, that’d be too bad. That’d be a shame. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Free societies, which allow differences to speak and be heard, and live by intermarriage, commerce, and free migration, and democratic societies, which convert enemies into adversaries and reconcile differences without resort to violence, are societies in which the genocidal temptation is unlikely and even inconceivable. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition warfare. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Desert Storm was seen by the military establishment and by some politicians as avenging Vietnam, but it left behind dangerous illusions. The victory was so decisive, and information about it so carefully managed, that the American public was never clearly informed that it was purchased at the price of approximately 100,000 Iraqi lives. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Conservatives believe that international institutions such as the United Nations are anti-American and anti-Israeli cabals. Progressives do not like the economic medicine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank force down the throats of developing countries. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) I’m not tribal Labour. I’m a Liberal at heart. Different tradition, different language. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) What’s distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn’t care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn’t worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call ‘the problem of dirty hands.’ (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Not even a superpower can hold onto its economic sovereignty if it fails to get its fiscal house in order, and no one needs a well-regulated international economic order more than the United States. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People’s Republic of China and in Putin’s police state. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) The detention of Japanese Americans during World War II would qualify as an example of majoritarian tyranny and misuse of executive prerogative, driven by fear and racial bias. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Lincoln was not an intellectual, but no one in 200 years understood the language of the King James Bible or learned Blackstone’s Laws of England, or Cicero, or the language of the Founding Fathers, better than he did. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) Belief in liberal freedom and democracy is always belief in it in a particular place, in a national home with histories that only those who are born in a place or who adopt its citizenship can hope to understand. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) I went into politics thinking that, if I made arguments in good faith, I’d get a hearing. It’s a reasonable assumption, but it’s wrong. In five and a half years in politics up north, no one really bothered to criticize my ideas, such as they were. It was never my message that was the issue. It was always the messenger. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes) When we say, even in a global village, that all politics is local, we mean that national sovereignties are the only reliable source of political authority. (Michael Ignatieff Quotes)

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