Bill Ayers Quotes

The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.

Well I believe in the desirability of an optimal society.

That's what 'Star Trek' was: We don't know how to make an ideal society, but we're going to portray that, and then we're going to work backward. I think that's why science fiction - despite the dystopian parts - comes out of this super ideal that, eventually, we will get to some better place where we actually live up to our ideals.

There was an idea in the air, becoming clearer and stronger, an idea not just in the theories of Karl Marx but in the dreams of writers and artists through the ages: that people might cooperatively use the treasures of the earth to make life better for everyone, not just a few.

I think that Utopia is a theory of human action.

No healthy civilization can ever be reared on a foundation of devitalized work.

The American Dream is one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions.

Maybe life on earth could be heaven, doesn't just the thought of it make it worth a try?

Progress is the realization of utopia.

The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disappointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must.

I think everybody who really wants to change things has to allow themselves to be angry in a constructive way, and you have to fully understand the thing you're trying to change. We really need to get serious about this now; there needs to be real, effective programs. I think there needs to be a little bit more strategy involved and a little more realism, to be pragmatic and realistic, looking at the way we as women contribute to the problem. Once the second half of the population stops doing it, it's going to end.

Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!

We can dream of an America, and a world, in which love and not money are civilization's bottom line.

We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

Wherever human beings are concerned, trend is not destiny.

I can also be very happy in this life, but it's usually happiness that I get from other lives I've lived and other dimensions. This life is hardly important to me. It's very small compared to the importance that I think the fourth and fifth dimension have. Those places are much more real to me, like when you have a dream and it's more real to you than real life. Compared to where I'll be going, this life seems like a dream that just feels like a dream.

Our vision is not just of economic growth, but also of a growth which would improve the life of the common man.

Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try.

Singularitarians are the munchkins of the real world. We just ignore all the usual dungeons and head straight for the cycle of infinite wish spells.

You have to remember that writing those sorta songs is not reality, it's more like trance, dream, y'know, like dreamwork. The mythical thing can enter the creating but there's the mythical place and the real place. And there's both...I get it between waking and sleeping. Or, when I'm doing something else. I don't sit down and think I'm gonna write about subject X or subject Y. I could be doing something and an impression comes in from outside and the song emerges out of that. It's never thought about or contrived.

It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

Too often we forget that social and political movements don't happen overnight. They don't bring change immediately - you have to build a critical mass of understanding of the issues.

When you sleep, your dream world is as real to you as life, isn’t it?

Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good.

In Donald Trump, you have someone who will bring real change to Washington, D.C. He's a bold leader. He's distinctly American. He doesn't play by the old-fashioned rules. He's going to Washington, D.C., break up the status quo, and I believe get this economy moving again and have America standing tall in the world.