# Quote — Niall Ferguson, Empire

> ‘Amazing Grace’ is the supreme hymn of Evangelical redemption….It is therefore tempting to imagine John Newton suddenly seeing the light about slavery and turning away from his wicked profession to dedicate himself to God. But the timing of Newton’s conversion is all wrong. In fact, it was after his religious awakening that Newton became the first mate and then the captain of a succession of slave ships, and only much later that he began to question the morality of buying and selling his fellow men and women.

- Author: [Niall Ferguson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson.md)
- Book: [Empire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire.md)
- Page: 78
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson#Empire:_How_Britain_Made_the_Modern_World_(2003)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/amazing-grace-is-the

## More from this book

> Finally, although Anglophone economic and political liberalism remains the most alluring of the world’s cultures, it continues to face, as it has since the Iranian revolution, a serious threat from Islamic fundamentalism.

p. 364 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/finally-although-anglophone.md)

> The familiar rationale of white rule in Africa was that it conferred the benefits of civilization. The war made a mockery of that claim.

p. 301 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/the-familiar-rationale.md)

> In 1940, under Churchill’s inspired, indomitable, incomparable leadership, the Empire had stood alone against the truly evil imperialism of Hitler. Even if it did not last for the thousand years that Churchill hopefully suggested it might, this was indeed the British Empire’s 'finest hour'.
>
> Yet what made it so fine, so authentically noble, was that the Empire’s victory could only ever have been Pyrrhic. In the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire’s other sins?

p. 355 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/in-1940-under.md)