To be in Florence is to reflect on Europe's intricate diversity - and its lost creativity. Timothy Garton Ash More Quotes by Timothy Garton Ash More Quotes From Timothy Garton Ash That said, the question remains: how to strike the balance between free speech and mutual respect in this mixed-up world, both blessed and cursed with instant communication? We should not fight fire with fire, threats with threats. Timothy Garton Ash communicationfightingblessed Nuclear proliferation - the proliferation of WMDs altogether - is one of the greatest dangers of our time. Timothy Garton Ash wmdnucleardanger The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities. Timothy Garton Ash libertysurvivalkeys If you had said to anyone in 1945, at the end of the Second World War with the continent it ruins, that you could have a European Union of 28 member states stretching from Portugal in the West to Estonia in the East, all of them more-or-less liberal democracies - they wouldn't have believed you. Timothy Garton Ash eastdemocracywar Europe is a woman, now middle-aged, who has already had a number of heart attacks and is currently experiencing the biggest health crisis of her life, but one that need not be fatal. Timothy Garton Ash heartnumberseurope There is already a generation of European graduates who feel they have been robbed of the better future they were led to expect. They are members of a new class: the precariat. Timothy Garton Ash graduatesgenerationsclass Starting from the ruins of the Second World War, we - all Europeans said, after centuries of fighting each other, we're going to build permanent arrangements in which peace between European countries is secured, freedom is secured, and growing prosperity. And that's what we have done over the last 70 years. Timothy Garton Ash fightingwarcountry Europe's biggest problem is its success. Timothy Garton Ash problemeurope The first job of the historian and of the journalist is to find facts. Not the only job, perhaps not the most important, but the first. Facts are the cobblestones from which we build roads of analysis, mosaic tiles that we fit together to compose pictures of past and present. There will be disagreement about where the road leads and what reality or truth is revealed by the mosaic picture. The facts themselves must be checked against all the available evidence. But some are round and hard--and the most powerful leaders in the world can trip over them. So can writers, dissidents and saints. Timothy Garton Ash powerfuljobsreality The trouble is that privacy is at once essential to, and in tension with, both freedom and security. A cabinet minister who keeps his mistress in satin sheets at the French taxpayer's expense cannot justly object when the press exposes his misuse of public funds. Our freedom to scrutinise the conduct of public figures trumps that minister's claim to privacy. The question is: where and how do we draw the line between a genuine public interest and that which is merely what interests the public? Timothy Garton Ash mistresscabinetslines Except for its worst inner-city slums, America is not the primitive capitalist jungle of European imagination, where human beings slink away like wounded animals to die in bloodstained holes. Timothy Garton Ash citiesanimalamerica Ordinary Americans, and especially the small minority active in Democrat and Republican primaries, must learn more of what people across the globe are thinking and saying about the US. For if you follow that, you realise that the erosion of American power is happening faster than most of us predicted -- while the politicians in Washington behave like rutting stags with locked antlers. Timothy Garton Ash erosionamericathinking I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime. Timothy Garton Ash danishcriminalsweakness After saying yes to Turkey, the EU is having difficulty finding clear and consistent grounds for saying no to other, still more remote candidates - but being in the general vicinity of Europe does seem to be a continuing requirement. Timothy Garton Ash saying-yesturkeyseurope One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image. Timothy Garton Ash violencekindpast The main problem with American power is not that it is American... No, the main problem with American power is the power itself. It would be dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power. Timothy Garton Ash dangerousproblemwould-be What is the elephant in all our rooms? It is the global triumph of capitalism. Democracy is fiercely disputed. Freedom is under threat even in old-established democracies such as Britain. Western supremacy is on the skids. But everyone does capitalism. Americans and Europeans do it. Indians do it. Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes do it. Even Chinese communists do it... Karl Marx would be turning in his grave. Or perhaps not, since some of his writings eerily foreshadowed our era of globalised capitalism. His prescription failed but his description was prescient. Timothy Garton Ash chineseelephantswriting I have a dreadful feeling in my bones that future historians may write of the May 2014 elections: "This was the wake-up call from which Europe failed to wake up." Timothy Garton Ash feelingswritingeurope The whole project of European Union is one in deep trouble. Timothy Garton Ash unionsprojectstrouble Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those "easy speeches that comfort cruel men. Timothy Garton Ash heromenlying
