Moynihan Quotes & Sayings

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Bad liars always think they're good at it. (quoting Michael Moynihan) — Jon Ronson

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. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

As the family goes, so go the children. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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

I think I'm a big kid at heart, so I get very excited around the holidays. — Bobby Moynihan

The American Constitution was designed to make it hard to have too much government. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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

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

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

My first 'SNL' episode was with Michael Phelps and Lil Wayne. And if you go back and watch the monologue - it was supposed to feature Barack Obama, but we couldn't get him - it was with William Shatner. But if you watch it, Guy Fieri is sitting in the front row. — Bobby 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

In my mind, not in real life. My rap name will be Optimus Rhymes. Or the Notorious B.o.B. — Bobby Moynihan

Stubborn opposition to proposals often has no other basis than the complaining question, 'Why wasn't I consulted?' — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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

The bomb was 'born secret,' as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said. The atomic bomb marked a powerful turning point in America's stewardship of national security affairs. After its arrival, Garry Willis argues, 'the power of secrecy that enveloped the Bomb became a model for the planning or execution of Anything Important, as guarded by Important People.' But the first stop was a radical restructuring of the government itself, to account for the development and expansion of a nuclear arsenal requiring special means, staffs, oversight, and a stringent and novel regime of peacetime secrecy. The national security state was born. — Scott Horton

No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I used to take musical instruments home from elementary school. There were some music teachers there - we all learned instruments. A lot of us got started in public schools. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, for example. But now there are no more music teachers in public elementary schools. It's like (Senator) Moynihan said, 'benign neglect.' Just let it rot and fester. — Max Roach

My dad is quite possibly the biggest Giants fan in the world. I believe he wore a Phil Simms jersey to my high school and college graduations. — Bobby Moynihan

I can live with the robber barons, but how do you live with these pathological radicals? — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

These days with the web, you can burn out a character really quick. — Bobby Moynihan

The challenge to people like me is, how do you use your capabilities and resources to help support things that are important to you, whether it's the arts or education or homelessness? — Brian Moynihan

My mom makes something called green pie, which I thought was a delicacy that many people only had at Thanksgiving, but it turns out it was just Jell-O with whipped cream on it. And it's delicious. — Bobby Moynihan

Moynihan, when he was ambassador to the United Nations, produced the same effect when he attacked the Third World. These attacks aroused great admiration here; for example, when he denounced Idi Amin of Uganda as a "racist murderer." The question is not whether Idi Amin is a racist murderer. No doubt the appellation is correct. The question is, what does it mean for Moynihan to make this accusation and for others to applaud his honesty and courage in doing so? Who is Moynihan? He served in four administrations, those of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford - that is to say, administrations that were guilty of racist murder on a scale undreamed of by Idi Amin. Imagine that some minor functionary of the Third Reich had correctly accused someone of being a racist murderer. — Noam Chomsky

I steal props from 'SNL' a great deal. Almost every sketch I'm in, I try to grab something from it, so I have a storage space full of props. — Bobby Moynihan

'SNL' is one of those jobs where you are constantly reminded of how lucky you are and that you get to meet some of these people whose work you enjoy. Then you get to meet them, and they are just wonderful people. It turns out wonderfully, and you have a great conversation. — Bobby Moynihan

I was a bartender at a Pizzeria Uno's for nine years. The people I worked with were amazing, but it was quite possibly the most miserable time of my life. — Bobby Moynihan

Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead of doing something worthwhile for his country. — P. J. O'Rourke

What the press never does say is who the leaker is and why he wants the story leaked. Yet, more often than not, this is the more important story: What policy wins if the one being disclosed loses? — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

At 14 you are still in most respects a dependent youth, in some respects a child. At 24 you are an adult. In between, extraordinary turbulences take place. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The nature of the new world system was not so different from the old. It was for the moment more stable, but a reasonable forecast would be that Africa in particular had a century of border wars ahead of it. — 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

I've worked with Method Man and Shaquille O'Neil on multiple occasions. I'd never have thought. It's like, 'Oh, those guys. They're my movie buddies.' — Bobby Moynihan

It is perhaps common in the world for individuals and nations to suffer for their noble qualities more than for their ignoble ones. For nobility is an occasion for pride, the most treacherous of sentiments. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a more rational debate about cholesterol, heart disease, or any other health problem is the simple fact that too many of the people we turn to for advice on such matters - our doctors - are tied to the makers of drugs. Sometimes those ties involve several hundred thousand dollars a year, sometimes just a few warm doughnuts. RAY MOYNIHAN AND ALAN CASSELS, SELLING SICKNESS Furthermore, — Nora T. Gedgaudas

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

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Pandaemonium was inhabited by creatures quite convinved that the great Satan had their best interests at heart. Poor little devils. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I don't have a dark side as far as there is, like, murder in my past, but yeah, I think I'm a pretty nice, easygoing guy. — Bobby 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

I'm very wary with impressions - I don't think I'm very good at impressions, I hate doing them. — Bobby Moynihan

To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Secrecy is for losers. For people who do not know how important the information really is. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I did a lot of theater as a kid because I had a bunch of friends who did it. — Bobby 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

I never really read comics. I bought them, and I would draw them. — Bobby Moynihan

To strip our past of glory is no great loss, but to deny it honor is devastating. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Marriage orients men and women toward the future, asking them not just to commit to each
other but to plan, to earn, to save, and to devote themselves to advancing their children's prospects. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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

There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal story that people tell about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the brilliant, prickly, and iconoclastic late senator from New York. Apparently, Moynihan was in a heated argument with one of his colleagues over an issue, and the other senator, sensing he was on the losing side of the argument, blurted out: 'Well, you may disagree with me, Pat, I'm entitled to my own opinion." To which Moynihan frostily replied, "You are entitled to you own opinion, but you are not entitled to you own facts. — Barack Obama

When I was at Upright Citizens Brigade, I would pretend to be a sad, drunk rapper. — Bobby Moynihan

There are some mistakes only someone with a Ph.D. can make. — 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

Things become complicated if there are enough people to complexify them. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

One 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

I grew up listening to a lot of Snoop Dogg and the Wu-Tang Clan. Actually, I was a huge Wu-Tang fan. — Bobby Moynihan

There is simply nothing so important to a people and its government as how many of them there are, whether their number is growing or declining, how they are distributed as between different ages, sexes, and different social classes and racial and ethnic groups, and again, which way these numbers are moving. — 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

The liberal left can be as rigid and destructive as any force in American life. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

One does not part willingly with early
loyalties or early traditions, and indeed the rolling years do but confirm them. — Michael Moynihan

Once at Haldeman's 7:45 a.m. senior staff meeting, Moynihan grew so frustrated at the wandering discussion that he raised his clenched fist, brought it down hard on the table, and shouted, "Fuck!" There was immediate silence. Butterfield watched everyone turn to Rose Woods, the only woman at the meeting, in horror and embarrassment. — Bob Woodward

The US wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The department of state desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

If you don't have 30 years to devote to social policy, don't get involved. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I have no doubt that there will continue to be bumps, some serious crises indeed in our relationship with China ... Neither membership in the WTO nor normalized trade relations with the United States will magically impose the rule of law on China or institute deep-seeded respect for human rights. But it certainly has potential to advance those purposes. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

There's a guy on YouTube named Mac Lethal - he spits hot fire. — Bobby Moynihan

If you watched 'Lost,' sometimes the episodes were crazy good, and sometimes you're like, 'That one was just sorta there.' — Bobby Moynihan

There is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Soviet Union came apart along ethnic lines. The most important factor in this breakup was the disinclination of Slavic Ukraine to continue under a regime dominated by Slavic Russia. Yugoslavia came apart also, beginning with a brutal clash between Serbia and Croatia, here again 'nations' with only the smallest differences in genealogy; with, indeed, practically a common language. Ethnic conflict does not require great differences; small will do. — 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

Citizen participation is a device whereby public officials induce nonpublic individuals to act in a way the officials desire. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

It's not like you do 'SNL' and then get handed movie roles. You work, you audition for stuff and try to get it. I think, a lot of people, it's the goal to be in movies or just to be working in general. But yeah, some of us get lucky and get some movie roles, and it's nice. — Bobby Moynihan

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

It has proved politically wiser to set goals than to start programs. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Lord looks after drunks and Americans. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I'm very bad with music. I don't know any new music. I've listened to the same 10 or 12 albums my whole life. — Bobby Moynihan

I'm not very big on politics. I'm a comedian and not that smart. I don't have the mind capacity for it. — Bobby Moynihan

Me, Billy Crystal and John Goodman hang out non-stop, and all we do is silly voices. We hang out in a little closet and do voices together. — Bobby Moynihan

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. — Chris Rodda

The 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 Moynihan

A responsible government does not triple the national debt in eight years. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I'm a Democrat, and there are an important group of things only the government can do. But let us be clear that for most of the world, what they most need is less government. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

In the era of security clearances, to be an Irish Catholic became prima facie evidence of loyalty. Harvard men were to be checked; Fordham men would do the checking. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The atmosphere in which social legislation is considered is not a friend of truth. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The world's largest debtor is a distinction of sorts, but not the one we like having ... — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

So many of the new nations which were established as democracies after the second world war, during the decolonizing process, have now changed their system to state-socialism. Small elites run them, and they aren't sharing societies. They aren't even socialist. The power of the state has been merged with business property and you have the greatest concentration of power that's possible. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Liberty lives in protest and democracy prospers under conditions of change. When we travel about the world and come to a country whose newspapers are filled with bad news we feel that liberty lives in that land. When we come to a country whose newspapers are filled with good news, we feel differently. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

What is not discussed, will not be advanced. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The status quo is working. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Irresponsibility breeds irresponsibility. The finances of government are so central. You'd think that would be pretty obvious. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The people I admire most are those doing outstanding things for the poorest children, such as Michael Wilshaw at Mossbourne academy, Dan Moynihan and all those at the Harris academies, and those at chains such as Ark and the Haberdashers, who are driving up standards in the poorest areas. — Michael Gove

We have the right to our own opinions, but not our own facts. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Secrecy is for losers. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Pat Moynihan could write books with one hand and legislate with the other. I can't; I have a short attention span. The slightest distraction would take me away from writing. — Barney Frank

Political society wants things simple. Political scientists know them to be complex ... One could argue that, in part, the leftist impulse is so conspicuous among the educated and well-to-do precisely because they are exposed to more information, and are accordingly forced to choose between living with the strains of complexity, or lapsing into simplism. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

This is a marathon in life. You can't be sprinting all the time or else you wear yourself out. You have to make sure you're taking care of yourself, keeping yourself grounded and not letting every little thing get you worked up. — Brian Moynihan

People who pierce the veil of money rarely return with their faculties altogether intact. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan