Cullen Murphy > Quotes

“The important question to ask is why these bodies are allowed to exist. If a country such as Spain allowed a repressive body like the Inquisition to exist for four hundred years, it is not because the Inquisition forced itself on the Spanish nation. It is because the Spaniards allowed it to exist.”
― Cullen Murphy, God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

“The bigger the entity and the more things it touches, the more susceptible it is to forces beyond its control. Maintaining stability requires far more work than formenting instability. Analysts of modern terrorism wring their hands over a version of the same dilemma: governments can win only by defending everywhere; terrorists can win by succeeding anywhere.”
― Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America