Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, once asked, “How shall we respond to the dreams of youth?” It is a dazzling and elegant question, a question that demands an answer–a range of answers, really, spiraling outward in widening circles.
BILL AYERSI’m not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he’s doing what he said he would do.
More Bill Ayers Quotes
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I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.
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One of the things that happened that I think is noteworthy, my parents were pretty tolerant people given their position in society.
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[The whole first year at university] was a great time for me and great time of awakening.
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So that’s kind of amazing. But he was offered a cabinet post by Eisenhower in his second term. So he was moderate Republican. But if you asked him, he would’ve said, “I don’t have any politics. I’m a business person.” Mainstream, the American view, as he understood it.
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When I was young, communism, which had a certain allure to me, was clearly a failed experiment in the Soviet Union and in China. And yet, anti-communism was as bad.
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I get up every morning and think…today I’m going to end capitalism.
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We should open our eyes, see what’s in front of us, and act.
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[Lyndon ] Johnson was responding to a black freedom movement that was tearing the country open and he did what he had to do as a conservative politician.
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In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying “I’m sorry,” is that there’s so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.
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I don’t know that I ever bought into the “American dream.” I was a child of privilege. I grew up in the ’50s and it was a quiet time in America, at least on the surface and I grew up in a kind of feathery bed of privilege.
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Two thousand people a day were being murdered in Vietnam in a terrorist war, an official terrorist war.
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I think Bowe Bergdahl, if he deserted, is a hero – I think throughout history we should build monuments to the unknown deserters.
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If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.
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It’s worth remembering that in 1965, something like 20% of Americans were against the war. Something like 70% were for the war. So, it wasn’t a popular or an easy thing to do.
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In a world as out of balance as this world, everyone can find something to do. And the question isn’t can you do everything; the question is, can you do anything?
BILL AYERS