The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.

A value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.

I favor a form of cosmopolitanism that takes nations very seriously, particularly because of the role of national law in sustaining or, unfortunately, undermining human rights. Some cosmopolitans take the metaphor of global citizenship - the etymology of the word, after all, just comes from a Greek phrase meaning citizen of the world - to rule out taking national citizenship seriously. I think that's a big mistake. Why can't I be loyal to America and to humanity? After all, I can be loyal to America and to New York city!

The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.

There are many people of cosmopolitan temperament who are not from the elites of their societies or the world; and while, for a variety of reasons, I think a cosmopolitan spirit does naturally go with city life, that's the life of a very large proportion of human beings today. And I don't think rural people can't be cosmopolitan, in my sense.

In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you're playing

Unless you have the power to stop the government of Iran beheading teenagers for homosexual acts, there's not much to be done except deplore it unless you are willing to converse with people about why they thinking this is okay.