I've been both a journalist and a politician, and I can tell you it is more fun to ask the questions than… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
I'm not tribal Labour. I'm a Liberal at heart. Different tradition, different language. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
You can't get back to power by defining your project in negative terms. But it helps to have somebody in office who… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
It turns out that there is nothing so 'ex' as an ex-politician, especially a defeated one. Your phone goes dead. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
I had a lot of hubris going into politics, but I didn't think I was Pierre Trudeau. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
I teach students that what people say about failure in politics is mostly wrong. People always told me, 'They'll praise you on… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
There are all kinds of different forms of public service, but there's no form of public service that can make more difference… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
What really matters is getting new people in. The constitutional changes matter, but the thing that the party mustn't do is turn… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
Politics is a tough game. But would I change places with a trauma nurse in an emergency ward on a busy Saturday… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
I may have come into politics with an unacknowledged condescension toward the game and the people who played it, but I left… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
For someone like me who, as a kid, walked to school muttering little political speeches to myself, it was irresistible to finally… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
I had no inkling of how crazy the political life would turn out to be. You shuttle between your constituency and Ottawa,… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
Politics isn't a reality show or a gong show. It's not show business for ugly people. It's the arena where we define… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
The politics of personal destruction, the politics of division, the politics of fear, it's all there. It helps you to define the… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
All the best reasons for going into politics never really change: the desire for glory and fame and the chance to do… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share Image
The Only cure for nihilism is for liberal democratic societies - their electorates, their judiciary, and their political leadership- to insist that force is… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
What really matters is getting new people in. The constitutional changes matter, but the thing that the party mustn't do is turn in on… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
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 Copy Share
Those with a gift for action, for their part, often express contempt for those whose gifts are more reflective. Men of action like to… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
Both Iraq and Syria are a fissile mixture of ethnicities and religions thrown together after Versailles by departing French and British imperialists and only… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
The legitimacy of coercive acts in a democracy arises from the process by which they are justified and by the degree to which we… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
Some of our finest leaders were not intellectuals at all, and I admire them enormously because they weren't. Harry Truman wasn't. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
If you get the access to see history happen, do you understand the history when it does happen? And the answer to that question… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
I have been a journalist, off and on, since I was 17. I was a copy boy for the 'New York Times,' when it… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with. — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of how far… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
An intellectual may be interested in ideas and policies for their own sake, but a politician's interest is exclusively in the question of whether… — Michael Ignatieff Copy Share
