There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridled" you mean unregulated.

So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.

It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution...responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs.

Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.

Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end.

You don't have to wait until people say they accept everything you say until you are actually prepared to sit down and discuss matters with them.