All Michael Ignatieff Quotes
- The ultimate good in a liberal state is liberty. Good
- A society is not a market. It is a political community. Community
- 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… Acts
- Ultimate authority in a global system remains with sovereigns. Governments will not have it any other way: politicians face instant rejection from their electorate if… Allow
- 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… All
- What makes the United Nations an appropriate source of legitimacy for intervention is that it is the only place where the claims of the strong… Appropriate
- Intellectuals are good at seeing the big picture. But they are not so good at process. Big
- Loving a country is an act of the imagination. Act
- Patriotism is the secret resource of a successful society. Patriotism
- Politics is like getting a really bad review: a stinker that you know all your friends are reading. All
- 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… Britain
- 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… Abuse
- For someone like me who, as a kid, walked to school muttering little political speeches to myself, it was irresistible to finally get a chance… Chance
- I had no inkling of how crazy the political life would turn out to be. You shuttle between your constituency and Ottawa, you try to… Barbecue
- Thinkers too often disparage men of action in ways that do them no credit. Action
- A good journalist is modest; his only job is simple: to decide what counts as news. Counts
- Democratic constitutions do allow some suspension of rights in states of emergency. Thus rights are not always trumps. But neither is necessity. Even in times… Abridgments
- 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… American
- Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of how far government… Adversarial
- The war waged against terror since September 11 puts a strain on democracy itself, because it is mostly waged in secret, using means that are… Both