Quote

The central conservative truth is that it is 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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Age: 76 †
Born: 1927
Born: March 16
Died: 2003
Died: March 26
Diplomat
Former United States Senator
Military Personnel
Politician
Sociologist
Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Daniel Patrick Pat Moynihan
Daniel Patrick
Politics
Society
Success
Determines
Culture
Liberal
Truth
Central
Change
Determine
Conservative
Save

More quotes by Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Image
Things become complicated if there are enough people to complexify them.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
Secrecy is for losers. . . . It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most persuasive 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
Image
No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
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
Image
What is not discussed, will not be advanced.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
Irresponsibility breeds irresponsibility. The finances of government are so central. You'd think that would be pretty obvious.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
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
Image
The status quo is working.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
The principal objective of American government at every level should be to see that children are born into intact families and that they remain so.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
We've come full circle but the best remains the heart of the city, the greatest center of the greatest city, our Acropolis, where our Christmas tree is lighted.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
As the family goes, so go the children.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The American Constitution was designed to make it hard to have too much government.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan