A commonplace of political rhetoric has it that the quality of a civilization may be measured by how it cares for its elderly. Just as surely, the future of a society may be forecast by how it cares for its young.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
A party of the working class cannot be dominated by former editors of the Harvard Crimson.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Government cannot provide values to persons who have none, or who have lost those they had. It cannot provide inner peace. It can provide outlets for moral energies, but it cannot create those energies.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
If you don't have thirty years to devote to social policy, don't get involved.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
In too many cases, if our Government had set out determined to destroy the family, it couldn't have done greater damage than some of what we see today.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of Cold War-era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Secrecy is for losers. For people who do not know how important the information really is.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Stubborn opposition to proposals often has no other basis than the complaining question, 'Why wasn't I consulted?'.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The central conservative truth is that is it culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by people with extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The liberal left can be as rigid and destructive as any force in American life.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
There are some mistakes only someone with a Ph.D. can make.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
What is not discussed, will not be advanced.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
When a person goes to a country and finds their newspapers filled with nothing but good news, he can bet there are good men in jail.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Found 23 occurence(s) in 52,545 quotation(s).