# Quote — Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution In Europe

> The social, spiritual, and political effects of immigration are huge and enduring, while the economic effects are puny and transitory. If, like certain Europeans, you are infuriated by polyglot markets and street signs written in Polish, Urdu, and Arabic, sacrificing 0.0035 of your economy would be a pittance to pay for starting to get your country back. If, like other Europeans, you view immigration as a lifeline of excitement, worldliness, and palatable cuisine thrown to your drab and provincial country, then immigration would be a bargain even if it imposed a significant economic cost.

- Author: [Christopher Caldwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell.md)
- Book: [Reflections on the Revolution In Europe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-europe.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Caldwell#Reflections_on_the_Revolution_in_Europe_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-europe/the-social-spiritual

## More from this book

> If one abandons the idea that Western Europeans are rapacious and exploitative by nature, and that Africans, Asians, and other would-be immigrants are inevitably their victims, then the fundamental difference between colonization and labor migration ceases to be obvious.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-europe/if-one-abandons.md)

> The policing of tolerance had no inbuilt limits and no obvious logic. Why was 'ethnic pride' a virtue and 'nationalism' a sickness? Why was an identity like 'Sinti/Roma' legitimate but an identity like 'white' out of bounds? Why had it suddenly become criminal to ask questions today that it was considered a citizen's duty to ask ten years ago?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-europe/the-policing-of-tolerance.md)

> One moves swiftly and imperceptibly from a world in which affirmative action can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too weak to a world in which it can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too strong.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-caldwell/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-europe/one-moves-swiftly.md)