Bill Moyers Quotes

Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don’t go hungry, unschooled or sick without care.
BILL MOYERS

Commitment Order Sick
Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.
BILL MOYERS

Freedom Hands Writing
How can those of us who are parents help our children recognize their bliss?
BILL MOYERS

Children Helping Parents
Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow.
BILL MOYERS

Arrows Ideas Motivational
Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.
BILL MOYERS

Charity Circumstances Commitment Personal Wealth
Capitalism is out of control, thanks in no small part to Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision which said that a corporation is a person, even though it doesn’t eat, drink, make love, sing, raise children or take care of aging parents.
BILL MOYERS

Children Long People
How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Political Soul
Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.
BILL MOYERS

Dream Freedom Tyrants
When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind.
BILL MOYERS

Blind Couple Theology
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
Our great progressive struggles have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich and privileged, share in the benefits of a free society.
BILL MOYERS

Citizen Ordinary Struggle
Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.
BILL MOYERS

Done Journalist Reporting Truth
Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder.
BILL MOYERS

Block Democracy Long
When we were covering the 2008 campaign I told my young African American colleagues that despite the historical significance of victory, Barack Obama was going to break their hearts.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Couple Heart
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
There is a historic strain of dominion theology which says, taking its references from the Psalms, that man is made just a little lower than God, and that we are the crown of creation.
BILL MOYERS

Animal Ark Expensive God Interception Men
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
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
The fault line in American history is now a dividing line in the election and it’s changing the conversation.
BILL MOYERS

Country Election Fault History
The thing about war is that once it’s triggered, it is unyielding in its appetite. And the more it consumes and gorges, the more it wants.
BILL MOYERS

Gorges Unyielding War
You can’t have a people’s democracy as long as corporations are considered people.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Long People
People who don’t believe in government are likely to defy our government.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Government People
Charity provides crumbs from the table; justice offers a place at the table.
BILL MOYERS

Charity Justice Tables
The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Media Quality
Journalism’s been a continuing course in adult education for me.
BILL MOYERS

Adults Continuing Journalism
But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.
BILL MOYERS

Democratic Freedom Mean Political Social System Today
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

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