“As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before.”
“at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.”
Chris Patten
“In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.”
Chris Patten
“There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.”
Chris Patten
“[M]y anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Beijing, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.<!--According to video archives, Patten said "Pek...”
Chris Patten
“No other place has quite the same blend of East and West, ancient and modern, spectacular and humdrum.”
Chris Patten