Empires, essentially, create order. In their absence, you don't end up with lots of happy, little nation-states full … - Niall Ferguson

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

Problems should be solved on the spot, as soon as they arise. No front-line employee should have to wait for a supervisor's permission

Niall Ferguson

Empires, essentially, create order. In their absence, you don't end up with lots of happy, little nation-states full of people sitting around campfires singing John Lennon's "Imagine. " What you end up with is civil war, anarchy.

Create, Imagine, Order, People, Singing, War

Same Author Quotes

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Taken, Today, West, Incredibly, Freedom

For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps- competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization.

Country, Download, Ethic, Law, Western, Years

As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet.

Authoritarian, Encourage, Meet, Professors, Strategy, Teacher

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

Country, People, Political, Raise, State, West

The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos.

Civilization, Civilizations, Edge, Inspiration, Motivation, Operate

Similar Quotes

Oswald Chambers

Why shouldn’t we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God’s purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, “Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine. ” If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?

Christian, Collapse, Hand, Heart, Opening, Pain

Nikolai Gogol

It is well-known that there are many faces in the world over the finishing of which nature did not take much trouble, did not employ any fine tools such as files, gimlets, and so on, but simply hacked them out with round strokes: one chop-a nose appears; another chop-lips appear; eyes are scooped out with a big drill; and she lets it go into the world rough-hewn, saing: "ALIVE!

Eye, Eyes, Let It Go, Nose, Round, World

James A. Baldwin

The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through. Most people had not lived -- nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died-- through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain. The great question that faced him this morning was whether or not had had ever, really, been present at his life.

Hammer, Kind, Morning, Pain, Terrible Events, Thereafter

Diablo Cody

These days, the Rolling Stones still have an edge, but that fangs-out ferocity has mellowed considerably.

Considerably, Ferocity, Rolling, Stones, These Days

Jan Carlzon