Bill Moyers Quotes, Thoughts and Images

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians - they stay bought.

People who don't believe in government are likely to defy our government.

The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.

Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder.

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.

How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?

Our media and political system has turned into a mutual protection racket.

I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one

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.

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Television is a medium. It is neither rare nor well done.

Charity provides crumbs from the table; justice offers a place at the table.

Martin Luther King subpoened the nation's conscience. He was killed for it.

I have seen hate born of fear, hate speaking in the name of God and truth, hate holding up a distorting mirror to fellow human beings.

Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind.

Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't.

We don't care really about children as a society and television reflects that indifference to children as human beings.

We now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.

Our children are being raised by appliances.

There's hardly a more bitter pill to take than when a President disappoints the people who most believed in him.

I take "We, the People" seriously because I don't know how we build a civilization without reciprocity.

I believe democracy requires a 'sacred contract' between journalists and those who put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works.