No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanThe work of democratic government is routinely concerned with matters defined as troubles. In "The Presidency and the Press" I make the point, familiar to anyone who has flown about the world much, that the best quick test of the political nature of a regime is to read the local papers on arrival. If they are filled with bad news, you have landed in a libertarian society of some sort. If, on the other hand, the press is filled with good news, it is a fair bet that the jails will be filled with good men.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanYou are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanCitizen participation is a device whereby public officials induce nonpublic individuals to act in a way the officials desire.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanThe atmosphere in which social legislation is considered is not a friend of truth.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanOne ideological claim is that private property is theft, that the natural product of the existence of property is evil, and that private ownership therefore should not exist... What those who feel this way don't realize is that property is a notion that has to do with control - that property is a system for the disposal of power. The absence of property almost always means the concentration of power in the state.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan