Rory Stewart Quotes

29 quotes in 409 categories

• I have never met a villager who does not want a vote.
• I had been walking one afternoon in Scotland and thought: Why don't I just keep going? There was, I said, a magic in leaving a…
• The question shouldn't be what we ought to do, but what we can do.
• If democracy is to be rebuilt … it is necessary not just for the public to learn to trust their politicians, but for the politicians…
• In the mountains, travelers were reduced to the speed of men on foot. Here, the ancient English sense of journey, 'a day's travel' (French journee),…
• This idea that failure is not an option: It makes failure invisible, inconceivable and inevitable.
• Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.
• Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity.
• The world isnt one way or another. Things can be changed very, very rapidly by someone with sufficient confidence, sufficient knowledge and sufficient authority.
• I do a lot of work with policymakers, but how much effect am I having? It’s like they’re coming in and saying to you, ‘I’m…
• The point about democracy is not that it delivers legitimate, effective, prosperous rule of law. It's not that it guarantees peace with itself or with…
• Religions . . . seem to avoid mountain passes.
• In the British embassy in Afghanistan in 2008, an embassy of 350 people, there were only three people who could speak Dari, the main language…
• I have not met, in Afghanistan, in even the most remote community, anybody who does not want a say in who governs them. Most remote…
• Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality and an idea of liberty. It reflects an idea of dignity, the dignity of the individual,…
• Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity. And part of that activity is honesty.
• For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public,…
• I am from Scotland, and I am Christian, not Muslim.
• Nostalgia for dead tyrants and the longing for heroes are unhealthy, and they can result in the deification of a Saddam as easily as a…
• September 11th has produced only miniature heroes because our culture has freed itself from many of the old, dangerous, elitist fantasies of heroism... But in…

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