Timothy Garton Ash quotes

Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author, and commentator specializing in European affairs. His work explores the history of contemporary Europe, with a focus on freedom and democracy. He has significantly influenced debates on European integration and the role of free speech in society. Here are 24 of his quotes:

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)
The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
To be in Florence is to reflect on Europe's intricate diversity - and its lost creativity. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Putin must be stopped. And sometimes only guns can stop guns. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
But transitions from the politics of violence to democratic compromise are always messy. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Canadians tend to be a bit more religious than most Europeans - though not more than the Poles or Ukrainians. Most important, their attitude to immigration and ethnic minorities is more positive than that of most Europeans. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism. (Timothy Garton Ash)
Nuclear proliferation - the proliferation of WMDs altogether - is one of the greatest dangers of our time. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Yet another thing Canadians and Europeans have in common is an obsession with the United States, and with distinguishing themselves from it, often by crude stereotyping. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
I love this country, but the union jack leaves me cold. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Well, that's the way democracy works. We have to build this Europe with the material we have at our disposal. And this material is national democracy. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Every step that produces a single job for a currently unemployed European should be taken. Every centimetre of red tape that puts someone out of work must be torn up. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Europe's biggest problem is its success. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
Russia has lost an empire but not yet found a role. Russia has to decide what it wants to be. And as we know in Britain, that takes some time. It is quite tough to lose an empire and Russia lost its empire very rapidly and very admirably, that is to say peacefully, it didn't fight. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
America should do a reverse Columbus. The world no longer needs to discover America; but America urgently needs to discover the world's view of America. (Timothy Garton Ash)
America is divided by a great argument about itself. Europe is divided by a great argument about America. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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. View quote
Timothy Garton Ash
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." View quote
Timothy Garton Ash

Timothy Garton Ash

Timothy Garton Ash - Image
Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Occupation: British Historian
Born: July 12, 1955
Quotes count: 24
Wikipedia: Timothy Garton Ash

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