Quotes by Niall Ferguson

About Niall Ferguson:

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian from Scotland. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities. His specialities are international history, economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, and British and American imperialism. He is known for his provocative, contrarian views.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I was never a very convincing social conservative, and always avoided associating myself with that part of the broader conservative movement.

Niall Ferguson

I would say I'm a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.

Niall Ferguson

I can't imagine having a conversation about 'Celebrity Big Brother' in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Niall Ferguson

President Obama's biggest weakness is weakness.

Niall Ferguson

I have three kids in Britain, and I am there at least once a month.

Niall Ferguson

Only in England would 'professor gets divorced and remarried' be a story.

Niall Ferguson

I'm over-industrious, so I don't feel quite such a deviant in America as I did in England.

Niall Ferguson

We historians are increasingly using experimental psychology to understand the way we act. It is becoming very clear that our ability to evaluate risk is hedged by all sorts of cognitive biases. It's a miracle that we get anything right.

Niall Ferguson

The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.

Niall Ferguson

Through pure accident of birth, I've managed to stay relatively youthful.

Niall Ferguson

The rise of the West is, quite simply, the pre-eminent historical phenomenon of the second half of the second millennium after Christ.

Niall Ferguson

When I first came to Oxford, I struggled to feel comfortable in an Anglican, public school-dominated institution.

Niall Ferguson

Civilisation is partly about restraining the male of the species from engaging in the violence of the hunter-gatherer period. But it doesn't take an awful lot to unleash it.

Niall Ferguson

It's not surprising so many people end up with credit-card debts. Saving for your retirement and buying a house are difficult things, and we don't educate people about them at all.

Niall Ferguson

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Niall Ferguson

If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and ...

Niall Ferguson

It's all very well for us to sit here in the West with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to...

Niall Ferguson

There aren't many people who really put their life on the line for human freedom.

Niall Ferguson

Ask me not, 'Are you rightwing,' but ask me 'Are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment?' Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the 'Wealth of Nations' and the 'Theory of...

Niall Ferguson

In general, I have felt more at home in the U.S. than I ever felt in England.

Niall Ferguson

I think the rise of quantitative econometrics and a highly mathematical approach to risk management was the obverse of a decline in interest in financial history.

Niall Ferguson

Author Bio

  • NameNiall Ferguson
  • DescriptionBritish historian
  • BornApril 18, 1964
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Economic Historian; Historian