Top 35 William Greider Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Everyone’s values are defined by what they will tolerate when it is done to others.”

— William Greider

2. “Creating a positive future begins in human conversation. The simplest and most powerful investment any member of a community or an organisation can make is to begin with other people as though the answers mattered.”

— William Greider

3. “Democracy begins in human conversation. A democratic conversation does not require elaborate rules of procedure or utopian notions of perfect consensus. What it does require is a spirit of mutual respect-people conversing critically with one another in an atmosphere of honesty and shared regard.”

— William Greider

4. “When self-important people and powerful institutions are governed by illusion, history has a way of biting back.”

— William Greider

5. “The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that.”

— William Greider

6. “The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.”

— William Greider

7. “If everyone has to be a watchdog in order to make government work, then the foxes will also volunteer to serve.”

— William Greider

8. “Money is power in American politics. It always has been.”

— William Greider

9. “Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.”

— William Greider

10. “The regime of globalization promotes an unfettered marketplace as the dynamic instrument organizing international relations.”

— William Greider

11. “Everyone cares for disabled people, right? What they don’t care for are genuine civil rights for disabled people. MARY JOHNSON tells the tortuous, enraging story of how Congress enacted a law that instead of protecting against discrimination has turned ‘the disabled’ into a political punching bag.”

— William Greider

12. “In 1900 Americans on average lived for only 49 years and most working people died still on the job.”

— William Greider

13. “The problem of modern democracy is rooted in its neglect of unorganized people.”

— William Greider

14. “Leaks and whispers are a daily routine of news-gathering in Washington.”

— William Greider

15. “The threat to globalization is not the wasted American dollars but Washington’s readiness to mix US commercial interests with its self-appointed role as global protector.”

— William Greider

16. “The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.”

— William Greider

17. “The rich nations of the world are acting like ancient usurers, lending money to the desperate poor on terms that cannot possibly be met and, thus, steadily acquiring more and more control over the lives and assets of the poor.”

— William Greider

18. “A profound political question is suddenly on the table: Must the country continue to give precedence to private financial gain and market determinism over human lives and broad public values?”

— William Greider

19. “The do-it-yourself version of pensions is a flop, as many Americans have painfully learned.”

— William Greider

20. “Children born today have a fifty-fifty chance of living to 100.”

— William Greider

21. “If we have wealth, it will be protected from inflation and possibly even enhanced in value.”

— William Greider

22. “People know elections, like television commercials, are not real.”

— William Greider

23. “In its present terms, the global system values property over human life.”

— William Greider

24. “The present struggle seems less about abolishing big government than about who gets to use it.”

— William Greider

25. “Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas – the ideas that money buys.”

— William Greider

26. “Fellow senators balked at punishing Senator Alfonse D’Amato of New York though he was caught in a series of transactions that earned him the label “Senator Sleaze.” D’Amato explained their reluctance as he defended his own behavior. “There but for the grace of God go most of my colleagues,” he said.”

— William Greider

27. “A newly elected representative quickly discovers that his job in government-aside from making new laws-is to act as a broker, middleman, special pleader and finagler.”

— William Greider

28. “Maybe the reason some folks lag behind in our free enterprise system is because they depend too much on the free part and not enough on their own enterprise.”

— William Greider

29. “If you think about it, Washington’s overwhelming power in the world is founded on death, the awesome arsenal for killing people.”

— William Greider

30. “Aside from sending someone to war or to prison, government s ability to make people involuntarily give over their money is its strongest exercise of authority over private citizens and their institutions.”

— William Greider

31. “The scandalous question that hangs over modern government and excites perpetual outrage is about political money and what it buys. What exactly do these contributors get in return for the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars they funnel to the politicians?”

— William Greider

32. “Folks in the bottom half of the economy are already squeezed hard. They will be bloodied and bankrupt if economic policy inadvertently induces a recession.”

— William Greider

33. “In the deregulated realm of US banking and finance, crime does occasionally pay for its foul deeds, not in prison time but by making modest rebates to the victims.”

— William Greider

34. “Efficiency obliterates identity.”

— William Greider

35. “The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.”

— William Greider

36. “If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.”

— William Greider

37. “Obviously, people with low or even moderate incomes could not afford such savings rates, and even diligent savings from their low wages would not be enough to pay for either retirement or healthcare.”

— William Greider