It was an idea that made the crucial difference between British and Iberian America — an idea about the way people should govern themselves. Some people make the mistake of calling that idea ‘democracy’ and imagining that any country can adopt it merely by holding elections. In reality, democracy was the capstone of an edifice that had as its foundation the rule of law — to be precise, the sanctity of individual freedom and the security of private property rights, ensured by representative, constitutional government. Niall Ferguson
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More Quotes By Niall Ferguson
  1. 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...

  2. 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.

  3. There can be no understanding without that sympathy which puts us, through the imagination, and (another's) situation.

  4. The bacteriologist, often risking his life to find cures for lethal afflictions, was another kind of imperial hero, as brave in his way as the soldier-explorer.

  5. After 1968 the restored communist regime required all Czech rock musicians to sit a written exam in Marxism Leninism

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