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If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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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
Enemy
Best
Nothing
Mind
Good
Becomes

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The American Constitution was designed to make it hard to have too much government.
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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.
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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.
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Pandaemonium was inhabited by creatures quite convinved that the great Satan had their best interests at heart. Poor little devils.
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You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.
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The world's largest debtor is a distinction of sorts, but not the one we like having.
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Things become complicated if there are enough people to complexify them.
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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.
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The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.
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The liberal left can be as rigid and destructive as any force in American life.
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The status quo is working.
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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.
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The atmosphere in which social legislation is considered is not a friend of truth.
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Secrecy is for losers. For people who do not know how important the information really is.
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The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.
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If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.
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No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
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It has proved politically wiser to set goals than to start programs.
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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.
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