We used to play marbles for keeps. If you lost, you lost. It is the same way with politics, but not everybody knows this. Daniel Patrick Moynihan More Quotes by Daniel Patrick Moynihan More Quotes From Daniel Patrick Moynihan The United States in the 1980s may be the first society in history in which children are distinctly worse off than adults. Daniel Patrick Moynihan united-states adults children No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty. Daniel Patrick Moynihan governing innocent guilty The world's largest debtor is a distinction of sorts, but not the one we like having. Daniel Patrick Moynihan debtors distinction world I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought we had a little more time. Daniel Patrick Moynihan Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good. Daniel Patrick Moynihan The richest inheritance any child can have is a stable, loving, disciplined family life. Daniel Patrick Moynihan loving child family life If we haven't become the Liberty Party of an undoubted future, let us take this fact: the great totalitarian regimes have died. The Soviet Union broke up along ethnic lines, as we always thought it would. The Chinese - am I wrong? - are becoming a commercial civilization. Daniel Patrick Moynihan thought great always future In 1914, there were two countries in the world that required you to have a passport if you wanted to enter - Czarist Russia and the Ottomans. Anywhere else, you could come and go as you pleased. Daniel Patrick Moynihan come-and-go go you world Welfare became a term of opprobrium - a contentious, often vindictive area of political conflict in which liberals and conservatives clashed and children were lost sight of. Daniel Patrick Moynihan conflict political lost children It's always been a subtext of our secular optimism that you solve the economic problem, and all other things sort of take care of themselves. Well, we seem to be doing well on the economic side - we are doing very well - and the other things are not solving - they're compounding. Daniel Patrick Moynihan you take-care care problem I was more in opposition within my own party, and for a long while, I was part of the opposition. I had - Scoop Jackson was my candidate in '76. I made no bones about that. Daniel Patrick Moynihan own my-own party long The Democrats have prevailed because, at heart, we have embodied a great idea, which is that an elected government can be the instrument of the common purpose of a free people; that government can embrace great causes and do great things. Daniel Patrick Moynihan great government heart people In my view - which could be wrong, but it is my field - there is no better formula for social instability than to divide a society between two ascribed characteristics that are seen as opposite. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrong view better society I did not have a lot of spare time after I was about eleven because in my youth, young people used to try to find ways of making money after school. From about age eleven on, I either shined shoes or did something such. Daniel Patrick Moynihan money age time people The principal challenge of the next phase of the Negro revolution is to make certain that equality of results will now follow. If we do not, there will be no social peace in the United States for generations. Daniel Patrick Moynihan challenge principal equality peace I was in charge of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So I had some of the most brilliant mathematical statistical minds in the country, who would put together the modern technology, if you like, of understanding the economy and tracking it and trying to influence it. Daniel Patrick Moynihan you technology understanding together I come from a part of the world - raised in a part of the world where you're born a Democrat, baptized a Democrat. Daniel Patrick Moynihan where you born world The principle of not negotiating with terrorists is the only thing we can hold on to. Daniel Patrick Moynihan the-only-thing principle hold only We must not let ourselves be seen as rushing around the world looking for arguments... Nor should we let ourselves be seen as ignoring allies, disillusioning friends, thinking only of ourselves in the most narrow terms. That is not how we survived the 20th century. Nor will it serve in the 21st. Daniel Patrick Moynihan looking friends world thinking We have to ask if it is once again the summer of 1914. Small acts of terror in the Middle East, in South Asia, could lead to cataclysm as they did in Sarajevo. Daniel Patrick Moynihan ask lead small summer
