Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

In the mountains, travelers were reduced to the speed of men on foot. Here, the ancient English sense of journey, 'a day's travel' (French journee), meant the same as the Old Persian word farsang, 'the distance a man could travel on foot in a day,' and the territory was in effect ungovernable.

I had been walking one afternoon in Scotland and thought: Why don't I just keep going? There was, I said, a magic in leaving a line of footprints stretching across Asia.

The point about democracy is not that it delivers legitimate, effective, prosperous rule of law. It's not that it guarantees peace with itself or with its neighbors. ... Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality.

Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

I have never met a villager who does not want a vote.

Religions . . . seem to avoid mountain passes.