“ No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear to itself, is indestructible. ”
It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.
~ Niall Ferguson
So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.
There can be no understanding without that sympathy which puts us, through the imagination, and (another's) situation.
The striking thing is that the transatlantic divergence in working patterns has coincided almost exactly with a comparable convergence in religiosity. Europeans not only work less, they also pray less – and believe less.
