"The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos."

--

Source : "The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity". TEDGlobal 2011, www.ted.com. July 2011.

Niall Ferguson

#Civilization Quotes #West Quotes #May Quotes

“We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.”

Source : 'The Golden Journey to Samarkand' (1913) 'Prologue'
“Instead of squirreling away your earnings early in your career, spend on experiences that will enrich your life - like diving with great white sharks. It can expose you to influential people who could open doors for you.”
“Reading is always a way of forming a bond with other people. I'm not very good at socializing - I quite like spending time alone - so reading is a way of engaging quite deeply with the way other people think. Quite often when you meet other people socially you don't get to have a conversation of any depth. You end up talking about how well or how badly someone is doing at school or something of that sort. Questions like, "What we are," "Who we are," "Where are we going," you get those from literature and from people that spend some time thinking.”

Source : Source: www.guernicamag.com
“Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade.”

Source : James M. Barrie (2013). “The Little Minister (Illustrated Edition)”, p.94, Jazzybee Verlag
“The point is, once they have a missile that can hit the United States, we are now back in the kind of game we used to worry about with the Soviet Union, only the Soviet Union was more mature about this whole thing than I think the North Koreans will be.”
“I know what cancer was. How is it like humankind?" Sek Hardeen's perfectly modulated, softly accented tones showed a hint of agitation. "We have spread out through the galaxy like cancer cells through a living body, DurÃ©. We multiply without thought to the countless life forms that must die or be pushed aside so that we may breed and flourish. We eradicate competing forms of intelligent life.”
“I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice.”

Source : "Talk Asia" with Stan Grant, www.cnn.com. July 2, 2005.
“Indeed, even if one believed that criticisms of Israel are by and large heard as anti-semitic (by Jews, anti-semites, or people who could be described as neither), it would become the responsibility of all of us to change the conditions of reception so that the public might begin to distinguish between criticism of Israel and a hatred of Jews.”

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