Fareed Zakaria Quotes

But now, we are becoming suspicious of the very things we have long celebrated - free markets, trade, immigration, and technological change. And all this is happening when the tide is going our way. Just as the world is opening up, America is closing down.

America's growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and immigration. The one thing that doesn't seem to have anything to do with America's growth rate is a brutal work schedule.

If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills [and] Fifth Avenue ... would have become targets long ago.

In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

American influence is not what it used to be.

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore.

You know, when the cost of capital goes down, when credit becomes cheap, people start taking greater and greater risks.

It is absolutely clear that government plays a key role, as a catalyst, in promoting long-run growth.

I don't want to paint a picture of total gloom and doom.

Religions are vague, of course. This means that they are easy to follow -you can interpret their prescriptions as you like. but it also means that it is easy to slip up -there is always some injunction you are violating. But Islam has no religious establishment - no popes, no bishops - that can declare by fiat which is the correct interpretation. As a result, the decision to oppose the state on the grounds that is insufficiently Islamic belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society.

I think it is quite untrue that it is standard journalistic practice to name the interviewer when quoting from an interview.

Politically Incorrect was the name of the show Bill Maher hosted in the 1990s. It's also an apt description of the man himself. Now host of - HBO's hit show Real Time, I find Maher to be one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life in general out there. It doesn't mean I always agree with him. I always find him funny, though.

Street protests in Saudi Arabia might warm our hearts, but they could easily lead to $250 a barrel oil and a global recession.

I think that liberals need to grow up.

Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it.

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.

There is no way to turn off this global economy, nor should one try. Every previous expansion of global capitalism has led to greater prosperity across the world.

Thanks to the Communist Party of China, we now know the path to poverty alleviation is Capitalism.

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai.

...foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.

One of the things that has been very difficult in Libya is the sense of uncertainty - the sense that they haven't actually finished the revolution, that there was still a great deal of uncertainty. That uncertainty has made Libya harder for business in terms of oil and other things as well.

I grew up in this world where everything seemed possible.

Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic. It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order.

I'm largely in favor of financial reform.

The markets are much more interested in America's long-term trajectory than they are in feeling that there is an acute short-term crisis.

The people who watch Fox are not going to watch CNN. You know, lets be honest.

What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.

Conservatives used to believe in confronting hard truths, not succumbing to comforting fairy tales. Some still do.

Alaska itself is an unusual state.

It is likely that human beings will find fulfillment and will be rewarded for the same qualities that they have been rewarded for for 5,000 years. And that is intelligence, hard work, honesty, a sense of character, loyalty to family and friends, and above all, love and faith. If you are trying to decide what you should do, those are the things you should do. And you know it.

The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.

It hasn't been easy to find American citizens who are willing to pick fruit in 110 degree weather.

My friends all say I’m going to be Secretary of State, [but] I don’t see how that would be much different from the job I have now

I very much want to be in the business of creating content, of doing stories all over the world rather than figuring out what the business model is for 'Newsweek' on the iPad, although that's very important work as well.

Media reporters have pointed out that the paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.

If you listen to the political discourse in America today, you would think that all our problems have been caused by the Mexicans of the Chinese or the Muslims. The reality is that we have caused our own problems. Whatever has happened has been caused by isolating ourselves or blaming others.

There is a huge crisis of employment in America, in the Western world in general.

Having your fiscal house in order and having a more manageable macro-economic future is going to be very useful in creating growth.

We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

Whenever someone says the word community, I want to reach for an oxygen mask.

There is very strong historical data that suggest the way societies grow is by making large, long-term investments.

I should not be judged by a standard that's not applied to everyone else.

I am an American, not by accident of birth but by choice. I voted with my feet and became an American because I love this country and think it is exceptional.

Intelligence is called the world's second oldest profession for a reason. Everyone does it.

It's not possible for two countries to be the leading dominant political power at the same time.

The problem is that Islam does not have a pope, so there's no one guy to say, 'This isn't kosher'...Not that he would.

California has often led the country, indeed the world, in the technology, consumption, trends, lifestyles, and of course, mass entertainment. It is where the car found its earliest and fullest expression, where suburbs blossomed, where going to gym replaced going to church, where forces that lead so many to assume that direct democracy is the wave of the future - declining political parties, telecommuting, new technology, the internet generation 0 are all most well developed in this vast land.