“In modern politics, even the leader of the free world needs help from the sultan of Facebookistan.”

“You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.”

“The failure of political leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failure.”

“Today’s milestone is human madness. Politics is a part of it, particularly in its lethal outbursts. Politics is not, as it was for Hannah Arendt, the field where human freedom is unfurled. The modern world, the world of world war, the Third World, the underground world of death that acts upon us, do not have the civilized splendor of the Greek city state. The modern political domain is massively, in totalitarian fashion, social, leveling, exhausting. Hence madness is a space of antisocial, apolitical, and paradoxically free individuation”

“If you need a reason to get involved in world politics, all you need to do is watch a playground of children for awhile. Imagine a world that happy and free all the time, that vision is the future worth fighting for.”

“For years many in the oil-rich states argued that their enormous wealth would bring modernizations. They pointed to the impressive appetites of Saudis and Kuwaitis for things Western, from McDonald's hamburgers to Rolex watches to Cadillac limousines. but importing Western good is easy; importing the inner stuffing of modern society - a free market, political parties, accountability, the rule of law - is difficult and even dangerous for the ruling elites”