Michael Ignatieff

The Only cure for nihilism is for liberal democratic societies - their electorates, their judiciary, and their political leadership- to insist that…

— Michael Ignatieff

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

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

Those with a gift for action, for their part, often express contempt for those whose gifts are more reflective. Men of action…

— Michael Ignatieff

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…

— Michael Ignatieff

There's a civic nationalism in Britain and dozens of other countries.

— Michael Ignatieff

Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics.

— Michael Ignatieff

Both Iraq and Syria are a fissile mixture of ethnicities and religions thrown together after Versailles by departing French and British imperialists…

— Michael Ignatieff

The legitimacy of coercive acts in a democracy arises from the process by which they are justified and by the degree to…

— Michael Ignatieff

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

If you get the access to see history happen, do you understand the history when it does happen? And the answer to…

— Michael Ignatieff

I have been a journalist, off and on, since I was 17. I was a copy boy for the 'New York Times,'…

— Michael Ignatieff

In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with.

— Michael Ignatieff

Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of…

— Michael Ignatieff

An intellectual may be interested in ideas and policies for their own sake, but a politician's interest is exclusively in the question…

— Michael Ignatieff

I think no one could have made peace in Bosnia besides Holbrooke.

— Michael Ignatieff

The war waged against terror since September 11 puts a strain on democracy itself, because it is mostly waged in secret, using…

— Michael Ignatieff

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name…

— Michael Ignatieff

I had a lot of hubris going into politics, but I didn't think I was Pierre Trudeau.

— Michael Ignatieff

Not even a superpower can hold onto its economic sovereignty if it fails to get its fiscal house in order, and no…

— Michael Ignatieff

In politics, there's a kind of literal-mindedness. It's what you say, not what you mean, and you have to say only what…

— Michael Ignatieff

“I admit I must have been impossible to live with. It was the self-righteousness of the grieving--my idea that I would betray…

— Michael Ignatieff

There are no techniques in politics.

— Michael Ignatieff

The ultimate good in a liberal state is liberty.

— Michael Ignatieff

I don't want to be someone sitting in my rocking chair at the end saying, 'Well, I passed.' My mum used to…

— Michael Ignatieff