I look at my people, and I look at those who control them - the political elite. And the sad thing is that the elites are just not interested in the welfare of the people.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.

Canadians must fight back against global elites preying on the fears and desperation of people to impose their power grab.

The French elites' strategy of trying to defeat the Le Pens by aping their rhetoric, stealing their policies, and pandering to their voters has been a political and moral failure.

Relationships based on deals between leaders or ruling elites tend to collapse amid popular anger.

I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators - Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Turner; it's not necessarily that they influence my work in any particular direction, more that their example raises my spirits, re-affirms my belief in the power of images to move and delight us, and shows me how much further I have to go, how much is possible. Having visited Venice and Florence for the first time, I am besotted with the Italian Renaissance artists - Botticelli, Bellini, da Vinci and others. Their work is calm, controlled, and yet each face and landscape contains such passion. In Botticelli's paintings, every pebble and every leaf is rendered with a religious devotion; there is reverence inherent in paying such close attention to every stone, turning painting itself into a form of worship, an act of prayer.

In the wilderness, God's covenant people struggled with a choice between feeding their bellies and nourishing their souls. God provided manna--a breadlike food that fell to the ground during the night--to sustain the wandering Israelites and to teach them how to value His Word more than physical fulfillment.

The secular elites are so terrified of telling the truth about radical Islam. When you talk about the radical Islamists we have got to get straight and get serious and talk about it in the right way.

I look at my people and I look at those who control them - the political elite. And the sad thing is that the elites are just not interested in the welfare of the people.

The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.

Only the elites despise earning money.

It is a fact that around the world the elites of every country are making money.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible at least on the scale it occurred.