That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point…
So what happens now?
We take our next set of data and we keep waiting for the unstoppable force to collide with the immovable object.
on China's zero COVID policy
The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected.
How come it is easier for us to imagine the end of all life on earth than to imagine a modest change in our economic order?
As I have taught you, persuasion can be ranked like this:
…Zar onda
ne bi bilo lakše da vlada
smeni ovaj narod i
izabere drugi?
When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.
Be the sand you wish to see in the gears.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Nothing changes without individuals and nothing lasts without institutions.