Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization.

I think forgiveness plays a very important part in Western society and it comes from the Judeo Christian heritage.

Each time you admire the façade of the New York Public Library, you are paying homage to Western civilization.

Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West.

Of course slavery and the Muslims were deeply implicated in the slave trade, Islam was an Imperialist religion which destroyed Christianity in the Near East, yet nobody mentions those facts.

Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.

Discussions of Western civilization are too often confined to works of high art that reflect a relatively narrow element of public taste and experience.