Daniel Patrick Moynihan

“The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.”

“If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.”

“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image.”

“You are not going to be able to have a civil society without a civil government.”

“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.”

“The issue of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect'.”

“Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one.”

“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.”

“If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.”

“Poverty is not a culture. People would leave it in a minute if they could.”

“The United States has never had a good post-war policy.”