No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanRead
Secrecy is for losers. . . . It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most persuasive of Cold War-era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us.
Interpretation
Secrecy undermines democracy and transparency, calling for an era of openness.
This quote emphasizes the drawbacks of government secrecy, particularly in the context of democratic societies. Moynihan argues that maintaining secrecy is detrimental and outdated, suggesting that an era of openness should be embraced to foster transparency, accountability, and trust in governance.
In practice
During a political rally advocating for government reform.
No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.
When a person goes to a country and finds their newspapers filled with nothing but good news, he can bet there are good men in jail.
You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.
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 richest inheritance any child can have is a stable, loving, disciplined family life.
The meaning in life is not out there but inbetween our ears. In many ways this makes us the lords of creation.
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Through all the years that I spent formulating my philosophical system, I was looking desperately for “intelligent agreement” or at least for “intelligent disagreement.” I found neither. Today, I am not looking for “intelligent disagreement” any longer ... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement.
There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.
Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.