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.

Conversations...begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from some place other than your own. So I'm using the word 'conversation' not only for literal talk but also as a metaphor for engagement with the experience and ideas of others. And I stress the role of the imagination here because the encounters, properly conducted, are valuable in themselves. Conversation doesn't have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it's enough that it helps people get used to one another.

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.

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

I believe there are universal moral values - some of which are very well served by a cosmopolitan attitude. You can think that there are universal values without supposing that everyone agrees as to what they are and without supposing that you have got them all right either.

Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another

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