black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I would say for the young: Don’t be straight jacketed by ideology. Don’t be driven by a structure of ideas.

Bill Ayers

Without a doubt. It’s woven into our DNA in a very deep way and so to kind of be smacked in the face with the hypocrisy of the America that we were sold was a liberating and harsh experience.
BILL AYERS

Country DNA Hypocrisy
Two months after that, Kennedy was assassinated. Two months after that, Henry Kissinger emerged from the swamp he was living in at Harvard with a plan to expand the war.
BILL AYERS

Assassinated Emerged Expand Living War
[John] McCain seemed to be winking to the Right, and [Barack] Obama seemed to be winking to the Left. Neither one of them – if McCain had been elected we’d still be where we are on gay rights.
BILL AYERS

Gay Rights Winking
Beginning to dismantle the Pentagon would save $1 trillion a year – a small government proposal if ever there was one.
BILL AYERS

Government Proposal Years
I said something idiotic like, as [William] Shakespeare says, “Action is eloquence,” and the judge just frowned at me and gave me a couple weeks in jail.
BILL AYERS

Couple Jail Judging
In Cairo, these young men hanging around in the street, we’re told these guys are lazy, they’re uneducated, they don’t care, they don’t have any political instincts – just like the working class in America, apparently – and then suddenly what the hell happened?
BILL AYERS

Class Happened Men Political Rights Street
To be a human being is to suffer. But it’s the unnecessary suffering, it’s the suffering that we visit upon one another, that really should be stopped.
BILL AYERS

Should Suffering Unnecessary
There was a sense of palpable relief that George [W.] Bush was leaving and that the Republicans had slipped back and that was a wonderful feeling.
BILL AYERS

Feelings Leaving relief
We just watched this budget debacle right? Seventy-three percent of Americans want to tax the rich. Why can’t the politicians respond to that? Because they are the rich. And they are beholden to the rich. It’s a captured system.
BILL AYERS

Rich Three Want
And afterwards the head of the group got to the microphone and said, I’m surprised that I agree with almost everything you said, but I’m worried that you’re a big government guy.
BILL AYERS

Agree Government Guy Surprise Worried
All of us pursued our own passions and our own interests. One of my brothers was filmmaker. One of my brothers was a teacher. My sister was a librarian.
BILL AYERS

All Filmmakers Librarian One Teachers
I always say your body is the temple of your spirit, why not decorate it? My kids say, no, no, your body is the temple of your spirit, keep it clean. I’m covered in tattoos and I get a tattoo every time I write a book. I get the tattoo from the book.
BILL AYERS

Book Tattoo Writing
Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.
BILL AYERS

Democratic Society Student Students
I proposed a law that every country where the U.S. has a military base – those people should be allowed to vote in the American election.
BILL AYERS

Country Law Military
If the logic of capitalism is “expand or die,” then either it has to die or the world has to die.
BILL AYERS

Capitalism Logic World
Two thousand people a day were being murdered in Vietnam in a terrorist war, an official terrorist war.
BILL AYERS

Murdered People War

I would say for the young: Don’t be straight jacketed by ideology. Don’t be driven by a structure of ideas.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I would say for the young: Don’t be straight jacketed by ideology. Don’t be driven by a structure of ideas.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Ayers Quotes