Michael Ignatieff: Politics

Michael Ignatieff is professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician. Explore interesting quotes on politics.

Michael Ignatieff: 42 quotes0 likes

“It was Reagan who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians with his speech in London at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, which led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy.”

Michael Ignatieff

"Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?", New York Times Magazine, June 26, 2005

“I’m in politics to speak up for a Canada that takes risks, that stands up for what’s right. A Canada that leads.”

Michael Ignatieff

Canada in the World Speech, University of Ottawa (30 March 2006)

“The Only cure for nihilism is for liberal democratic societies - their electorates, their judiciary, and their political leadership- to insist that force is legitimate only to the degree that it serves defensible political goals. Thus implies a constant exercise of due diligence…”

Michael Ignatieff

"The Lesser Evil" (Penquin, 2004) Pg. 144

“Ever since I entered Parliament in January, people have been asking me: Why have you gone into politics? As in: “Are you nuts?” No, I’m not nuts. This is my country, after all.”

Michael Ignatieff

Canada in the World Speech, University of Ottawa (30 March 2006)

“As a former denizen of Harvard, I’ve had to learn that a sense of reality doesn’t always flourish in elite institutions. It is the street virtue par excellence. Bus drivers can display a shrewder grasp of what’s what than Nobel Prize winners. The only way any of us can improve our grasp of reality is to confront the world every day and learn, mostly from our mistakes, what works and what doesn’t. Yet even lengthy experience can fail us in life and in politics. Experience can imprison decision-makers in worn-out solutions while blinding them to the untried remedy that does the trick.”

Michael Ignatieff

Getting Iraq Wrong http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html?ei=5070&en=1c14886ef4740931&ex=1187409600&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print&_r=0, The New York Times, August 5, 2007.