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Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician, sociologist, and diplomat. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate and served as an adviser to Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon. Moynihan proved to be one of the more remarkable and versatile US public figures of the last half of the twentieth century and a provocative scholar.Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Moynihan moved at a young age to New York City. Following a stint in the navy, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Tufts University. He worked on the staff of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman before joining President John F. Kennedy's administration in 1961. He served as an Assistant Secretary of Labor under Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, devoting much of his time to the War on Poverty. In 1965, he published the controversial Moynihan Report. Moynihan left the Johnson administration in 1965 and became a professor at Harvard University.

In 1969, he accepted Nixon's offer to serve as an Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and he was elevated to the position of Counselor to the President later that year. He left the administration at the end of 1970, and accepted appointment as United States Ambassador to India in 1973. He accepted President Gerald Ford's appointment to the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations in 1975, holding that position until 1976, when he won election to the Senate.

Moynihan represented New York in the Senate from 1977 to 2001. He served as Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee from 1992 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. He also led the Moynihan Secrecy Commission, which studied the regulation of classified information. He emerged as a strong critic of President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy and opposed President Bill Clinton's health care plan. He frequently broke with liberal positions, but opposed welfare reform in the 1990s. He also voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Congressional authorization for the Gulf War. He is tied with Jacob K. Javits as the longest-serving Senator from the state of New York. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. March 1927 – 26. March 2003
Daniel Patrick Moynihan photo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: 11 quotes0 likes

Famous Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

“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.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

'Memorandum dated March 2003' in Steven Weisman ed., "Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary"

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Quoted in Robert Sobel&#x27;s review of Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies edited by Mark C. Carnes. <br class="br">Quoted in Timothy J. Penny, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/207925/facts-are-facts-timothy-j-penny, National Review September 4, 2003. <br class="br">Ellen Hume, Tabloids, Talk Radio and the Future of News, part 4 http://www.ellenhume.com/articles/tabloids4.html ( TOC http://www.ellenhume.com/articles/tabloids_contents.html), 1995 cites this as something Moynihan said to a &quot;1994 electoral opponent on WNBC in New York&quot;. <br class="br">However, proceedings http://web.archive.org/web/20141031220947/http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/96id_protection.pdf of a Senate Intelligence Committee in 1980 attribute the identical quote to James R. Schlesinger (at p. 110), possibly made during the course of 1973 Congressional testimony. <br class="br">Also see Bernard Baruch, who said &quot;Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.&quot; in the January 6, 1950 issue of the Deming (New Mexico) Headlight <br class="br">See also this Barry Popik blog http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/everyone_is_entitled_to_his_own_opinion_but_not_his_own_facts for some etymological research into this quote and its variants. <br class="br">Attributed <br class="br">Variant: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. <br class="br">Variant: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. <br class="br">Variant: You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts.

“A commonplace of political rhetoric has it that the quality of a civilization may be measured by how it cares for its elderly. Just as surely, the future of a society may be forecast by how it cares for its young.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Family and Nation, ch. 3 (1986)

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder -- most particularly the furious, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure -- that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable. And it is richly deserved.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965)

“The mudslinging has begun.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Response to James L. Buckley addressing him as Professor Moynihan in a televised debate. ( Query.nytimes.com http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E7DF1439F933A05750C0A9659C8B63)

“[T]he nature of the new world system was not so different from the old. It was for the moment more stable, but a reasonable forecast would be that Africa in particular had a century of border wars ahead of it. On the other hand, such was the power of the anticolonial idea that great powers from outside a region had relatively little influence unless they were prepared to use force. China altogether backed Fretilin in Timor, and lost. In Spanish Sahara, Russia just as completely backed Algeria, and its front, known as Polisario, and lost. In both instances the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

A Dangerous Place, Little Brown, p. 247 (1980)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

“Political society wants things simple. Political scientists know them to be complex… One could argue that, in part, the leftist impulse is so conspicuous among the educated and well-to-do precisely because they are exposed to more information, and are accordingly forced to choose between living with the strains of complexity, or lapsing into simplism.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"The Schism in Black America" Public Interest (27), 1972.
Attributed

“A case can be made... that secrecy is for losers. For people who don't realize how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in a mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of Cold War-era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Secrecy, ch. 8 (1998)

“The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Family and Nation, ch. 1 (1986)

“What is not discussed, will not be advanced.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Quoted by Ralph Nader in a September 22, 2011 televised interview by CNN, in reference to issues and politics.
Attributed

“I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought he had a little more time.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

November 22, 1963; upon receiving news that President John F. Kennedy had died. (See A Thousand Days)
Attributed

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