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Bill Ayers

Bill Ayers Quotes

Professor

Bill Ayers (born December 26, 1944) is an American educator and former professor who taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He earned his doctorate in education from the University of Michigan and specialized in curriculum theory, teacher education, and educational reform. Ayers is a controversial figure due to his past involvement with the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing organization in the 1960s and 1970s. He has authored several books on progressive education and teaching methods. His academic work has influenced educators in the progressive education movement, though his historical association with radical groups remains a subject of public debate.

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Famous Bill Ayers Quotes

“I breathed the air of deliverance through books, and through books I leapt over the walls of confinement.”

Book Air Wall Deliverance Confinement

Book:Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

Source: Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

“But the frat boys were all frivolous and idiotic in our minds now, a bunch of conformist fools going through the motions of hip.”

Mind Boys Fool Bunch Hips Frivolous Idiotic Conformist

Book:Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

Source: Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

“You cannot live a political life, you cannot live a moral life if you're not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly. See some of the injustice that's going on. Try to make yourself aware of what's happening in the world. And when you are aware, you have a responsibility to act.”

Ifs World Trying Eye Political Responsibility Moral Willing Happenings Injustice Political Life Moral Life

Author:Bill Ayers

“Dunbar-Ortiz strips us of our forged innocence, shocks us into new awareness, and draws a straight line from the sins of our fathers-settler-colonialism, the doctrine of discovery, the myth of manifest destiny, white supremacy, theft and systematic killing-to the contemporary condition of permanent war, invasion and occupation, mass incarceration, and the constant use and threat of state violence.”

“Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, once asked, "How shall we respond to the dreams of youth?" It is a dazzling and elegant question, a question that demands an answer--a range of answers, really, spiraling outward in widening circles.”

Dream House Answers Youth Demand Circles Range Founders Elegant Jane Dazzling Hull Hull House

Author:Bill Ayers

“Andrew Breitbart, self-described media mogul, had several screws loose or missing and was the grinning bomb-thrower of the radical right. He was the attack dog kept on a tight leash and brought out on special occasions to hiss and to menace.”

Self Special Media Dog Missing Radical Occasions Bombs Screws Menace Andrew Grinning Leashes Special Occasion Moguls Throwers

Author:Bill Ayers

“It's amazing where the paranoid mind can take you.”

Author:Bill Ayers

“Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.”

People Home Parent Break Rich Car Revolution Apartment Rich People Obnoxious

Author:Bill Ayers

“I don't regret setting bombs.”

Regret Setting Settings Bombs Don't Regret

Book:Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

Source: Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist

“I voted for Obama and I was delighted that he's been elected.”

Author:Bill Ayers

“Beginning to dismantle the Pentagon would save $1 trillion a year - a small government proposal if ever there was one.”

Ifs Years Government Proposal Pentagon Small Government

Author:Bill Ayers

“I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.”

Writing Teach Havens Silent University Lectures

Author:Bill Ayers

“Imperialism or globalization - I don't have to care what it's called to hate it.”

Care Hate Imperialism Globalization

Author:Bill Ayers

“I don't think of myself as a particularly nostalgic person.”

Thinking Persons Nostalgic

Author:Bill Ayers

“One hundred years from now, we'll all be dead. It's hard to believe. One hundred years from now, everyone we see every day will be gone.”

Years Believe Hard Gone Hundred Hard To Believe

Author:Bill Ayers

“If the logic of capitalism is "expand or die," then either it has to die or the world has to die.”

Ifs World Dies Capitalism Logic

Author:Bill Ayers

“I've said for thirty years that capitalism is an exhausted system. But now you can see the handwriting everywhere. And one especially horrifying part is the fiscal crisis.”

Years Said Capitalism Crisis Thirty Exhausted Thirty Years Handwriting

Author:Bill Ayers

“In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying "I'm sorry," is that there's so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.”

Want Moving Term My Own Regret Activity Behavior Sorry Moving Forward I'm Sorry Funny Things Saying I'm Sorry

Author:Bill Ayers

“I don't think saying "I was wrong here, I was wrong there" absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.”

Thinking Doe Heaven

Author:Bill Ayers

“The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.”

War Movement Majors Massive Vietnam Anti War Anti War Movement

Author:Bill Ayers

“I wanted a racially just society. I wanted to end wars. I wanted to end white supremacy. I wanted to create a world that was based on egalitarianism, sharing, racial justice.”

World War Ends Wanted Justice White White Supremacy Supremacy Egalitarianism Racial Justice

Author:Bill Ayers

“Writing a memoir has a particularly excited sense of narcissism.”

Writing Excited Memoir Narcissism

Author:Bill Ayers

“There's something so remarkable in the intensity of taking care of somebody who can't take care of him or herself. And then watching that little person bloom into adolescence.”

Littles Persons Care Take Care Remarkable Intensity Adolescence

Author:Bill Ayers

“You will be raising these kids in your mind your whole life. And they will change you. Your little contribution to it - twenty years from now, they'll be marching off into other things and that's still the legacy you leave.”

Years Mind Littles Stills Whole Kids Twenties Whole Life Legacy Contribution

Author:Bill Ayers

“Art and activism can be symbiotic. They don't have to be, of course; they can also be contradictory.”

Art Courses Activism Contradictory

Author:Bill Ayers

“To me, activism requires you to try very hard to open your eyes to the world as it is. See as much as you can, knowing that whatever you see is going to be partial. That you possess a partial consciousness in an infinite and expanding universe.”

World Trying Hard Eye Universe Consciousness Knowing Infinite Activism Expanding Expanding Universe

Author:Bill Ayers

“The passions and commitments that ignited my activity as a student are the same passions and commitments that I have today.”

Today Passion Students Activity Commitment

Author:Bill Ayers

“When I was young, communism, which had a certain allure to me, was clearly a failed experiment in the Soviet Union and in China. And yet, anti-communism was as bad.”

Young Certain Unions China Experiments Communism Soviet Soviet Union Allure Anti Communism

Author:Bill Ayers

“If you read the literature of Soviet Communism, you see a dogma that's chilling. On the other hand, if you read the literature of anti-communism, it's every bit as dogmatic.”

Ifs Hands Literature Bits Communism Soviet Dogma Chill Dogmatic Anti Communism

Author:Bill Ayers

“Being an activist and an artist - those two things should go together. You should allow the artistic sensibility to control some of your activism, but never should it be allowed to paralyze you.”

Should Two Together Artist Activism Artistic Two Things Activist Sensibility

Author:Bill Ayers

“One of the things that's complicated about writing anything is that it's an act of narcissism, and then of course once it sails out into the world, you have to let go of it.”

World Writing Courses Letting Go Complicated Narcissism Sail

Author:Bill Ayers

“The only people who have never had a problem with me speaking in their venues are independent bookstores and libraries. Universities and humanities councils have canceled me, but never an independent bookstore.”

People Problem Humanity Independent Library University Council Bookstores Venues Independent Bookstores

Author:Bill Ayers

“Part of the fun of writing, touring, teaching, is engaging with real people about all of it: what to do now, how to build a movement, of approaches to teaching, of parenting - it's exciting to be in that dialogue.”

People Writing Real Fun Teaching Movement Approach Exciting Dialogue Engaging Touring

Author:Bill Ayers

“We have sex education - I'm for it, I'm not against it. But any curriculum should recognize that it's young people's job to invent it themselves. You're not going to teach them; they're going to reinvent it.”

People Should Jobs Young Sex Teach Curriculum Sex Education

Author:Bill Ayers

“Every relationship is an experiment and what one learns from it is so fascinating.”

Experiments Fascinating

Author:Bill Ayers

“When someone who's always been in your life is gone, it's a stunning adjustment of your own identity.”

Life Is Gone Identity Adjustment Stunning

Author:Bill Ayers

“I was indicted on two federal conspiracies. My wife was on the Ten Most Wanted list. That's what fascism was going to look like. That's what it did look like.”

Looks Two Wanted Wife Ten My Wife Lists Fascism Conspiracy Most Wanted

Author:Bill Ayers

“I don't buy the whole mythology of the sixties. I think I'm an intergenerational person.”

Thinking Persons Whole Mythology Sixty

Author:Bill Ayers

“Now you may like the images of long-haired hippies running in the streets throwing tear gas canisters, but we didn't end the war. And that's what we set out to do. What was not ended by the anti-war movement was ended by the Vietnamese. That's our shame.”

May Long War Ends Running Streets Movement Tears Shame Gas Throwing Anti War Hippie Vietnamese Anti War Movement

Author:Bill Ayers

“I thought in 1965 that my job was to convince most Americans to be against the war. So I spent summers knocking on doors, handing out literature, trying to talk to people who didn't agree with me, trying to get them to see the war was wrong. And by 1968 a majority of Americans did oppose the war.”

People Trying War Jobs Literature Doors Summer Agree Majority Convince Knocking Knocking On Doors

Author:Bill Ayers

“The rhythm of being an activist today involves a pretty simple rhythm. You have to open your eyes to the reality before you. You have to look and see.”

Looks Reality Eye Today Simple Rhythm Activist

Author:Bill Ayers

“If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.”

Ifs Persons Has Beens Law Parent Church White Common Tradition Slavery Common Sense Pastor Your Past

Author:Bill Ayers

“The world spends two trillion dollars a year on military, and of that two trillion the United States spends one trillion. We have a bigger military than the rest of the world put together. We have 150 foreign military bases.”

World Years Two States Together United United States Military Bases Bigger Dollars Military Bases

Author:Bill Ayers

“I proposed a law that every country where the U.S. has a military base - those people should be allowed to vote in the American election.”

People Should Country Law Military Vote Election American Elections

Author:Bill Ayers

“Martin Luther King was only an activist for 13 years and every year he changed and every year he became more radical. By the end he was calling for revolution. People don't know this because they go to too many prayer breakfasts on his birthday.”

People Knows Years Ends Prayer Changed Revolution Kings Calling Radical Activist Breakfast Luther

Author:Bill Ayers

“Can we imagine a different world? I can. That's a world where work is rational, it's in the common good, and we're actually producing real things rather than spinning our wheels in dreams of consumer heaven.”

World I Can Different Real Dream Heaven Common Imagine Rational Consumers Wheels Spinning Real Things Common Good Different Worlds

Author:Bill Ayers

“Your body's always going through changes. It's fattening or thinning or wrinkling or blotching, and the only thing you really have control over is putting some decoration on it.”

Body Your Body Decoration Fattening Going Through Changes

Author:Bill Ayers

“I always say your body is the temple of your spirit, why not decorate it? My kids say, no, no, your body is the temple of your spirit, keep it clean. I'm covered in tattoos and I get a tattoo every time I write a book. I get the tattoo from the book.”

Writing Book Body Kids Spirit Clean Your Body Temples Why Not Covered Tattoo

Author:Bill Ayers

“The idea that you live your life in phases - I've never bought that. I feel like I'm the same person who sat in at the draft board in 1965, I'm the same person who joined a fraternity, I'm the same person who got an MFA at Bennington, and I'm the same person who founded Weather Underground. My values are still intact.”

Feels Persons Stills Ideas Values Weather Boards Sat Phases Live Your Life Fraternity

Author:Bill Ayers

“I'm different in the sense that every minute of every day, I change. I'm thinking. But the basic principles that have powered me forward are still there. They're not different.”

Thinking Stills Different Principles Minutes Basic Principles

Author:Bill Ayers

About the Author

Born: December 26, 1944
Known for: Professor
Quotes: 202

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