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When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.

Bill Moyers

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does.
BILL MOYERS

Causes Doe Fighting
In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life – one’s own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.
BILL MOYERS

Circles Enough Land Tribe War
The left wing would see to it that ordinary people were included in the bargain. Both would keep the great bird on course. But with two right wings or two left wings, it’s no longer an eagle and it’s going to crash.
BILL MOYERS

Bargain Ease Longer Ordinary People
The most encouraging sign is that 71 percent of the public believe the system is profoundly corrupted by the power of money. Ninety-six percent of the people believe it’s “important” that we reduce the influence of money.
BILL MOYERS

Believe People Thinking
I’m angry at what’s happening to America and angry with myself that I can’t do more. I would be miserable if I couldn’t bear witness.
BILL MOYERS

Angry Bears Country
Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us.
BILL MOYERS

Thinking Warrior Winning
I’m the front man, I’m the man on camera, but there’s a whole team beyond me.
BILL MOYERS

Camera Men Team
The printed page conveys information and commitment, and requires active involvement. Television conveys emotion and experience, and it’s very limited in what it can do logically. It’s an existential experience – there and then gone.
BILL MOYERS

Commitment Gone Information
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality.
BILL MOYERS

Couple Reality Religion
Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.
BILL MOYERS

Charity Circumstances Commitment Personal Wealth
Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.
BILL MOYERS

Ethics People Stranger
In fact, so much of life, as you know, is serendipitous. That’s why you better be prepared at any time for anything, because it may happen to you.
BILL MOYERS

Facts May Prepared
Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Heart Voting
I was not a public – I was not a thinker. I was a doer.
BILL MOYERS

Doers Public Thinkers
Our economy is a plantation run for the aristocrats – the CEOs, hedge funds, private equity firms – while the field hands are left with the scraps.
BILL MOYERS

Fields Hands Running
Lyndon Johnson believed the poor deserved a better life than the economy was providing them. He thought private power and greed had to be checked by a vibrant democracy.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Economy Greed
America’s corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they’re privatizing democracy. All the benefits – the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up.
BILL MOYERS

Country Cutting Direction One
What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma – the science of the heart…the capacity to see, to feel, and then to act as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Heart Need People
I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one
BILL MOYERS

Believe Country People
When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Library Matter
Why is the country not having this conversation, the kind of conversation that requires the politicians who are responsible for the war to be specific to the concerns of the American people.
BILL MOYERS

Country People War
If the watchdog doesn’t bark, how do you know there’s a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog.
BILL MOYERS

Bark Basements Supposed
As a student I learned from wonderful teachers and ever since then I’ve thought everyone is a teacher.
BILL MOYERS

Students Teacher Teaching
Yet 91 percent think it’s “not likely” that its influence will be lessened. Think about that: People know what’s right to do yet don’t think it can or will be done.
BILL MOYERS

Done Lessened Right Think
Television can stir emotions, but it doesn’t invite reflection as much as the printed page.
BILL MOYERS

Pages Reflection Television
Conservatism is less a set of ideas than it is a pathological distemper, a militant anger over the fact that the universe is not closed and life is not static.
BILL MOYERS

Facts Ideas Life Static
How can those of us who are parents help our children recognize their bliss?
BILL MOYERS

Children Helping Parents

When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.

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When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.

Related Topics

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