Michael moore quotes

I believe that when you provide information to people, they become less fearful and they will engage more in their democracy if they are empowered with information.

Three of the top six documentaries of all time, grossing, are made by me.

I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad.

I've been encouraging documentary filmmakers to use more and more humor, and they're loath to do that because they think if it's a documentary it has to be deadly serious - it has to be like medicine that you're supposed to take. And I think it's what keeps the mass audience from going to documentaries.

I respect the fact that people have worked hard all week and want to go to the movies on the weekend and be entertained.

If we say, 'The government sucks,' we're kind of saying that we suck.

Most Americans, in their heart, are liberal and progressive. It's just a small minority of people who hate, they hate, they exist in the politics of hate, they don't believe two consenting adults should have the right to be in love and share their lives together and be legally protected by the state.

You know we are flawed people, so if someone is going to make a movie about me, they don't have to make it up. My real flaws are much funnier.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil.

Yeah, I think of what I do as a work of journalism. It's more like the op-ed page, though. These are my opinions. My point of view. The opinions are mine and I let you make up your own mind.

You do not have the right to take another human's life, unless it's in strict self-defense.

I'm a citizen in a democracy. To call me an activist would be redundant. It's not a spectator sport. If we all become non-participants, it no longer works.

'Zero Dark Thirty' is a disturbing, fantastically-made movie. It will make you hate torture.

I'm interested to see what happens with Fox News and phone hacking. I really can't believe it just happens in Great Britain. Because really, who cares about just hacking phones over there?

I'm a religious fanatic? Yes, I am, actually.

The wealthy have never liked to pay for the labor that enriches them. Ever since slavery was eliminated, they have been trying to keep it as close to slavery as they can without violating the slave laws.

I don't want to involve myself in the various arguments about why Israel was created . . . . . I want to deal with the situation at hand which is the ongoing killing on both sides. . . . . . . It's true that there's also much oppression of Palestinians in Arab countries, where Palestinians aren't allowed to vote or own property and are treated as second class citizens and pawns in the fight against Israel. But I'm not going to spend my time on this since there is isn't a whole lot I can do about it.

Sometimes it's important to vote - you know, to make a statement, to make a point; certainly, many of us who were involved in the Nader campaign in 2000 felt that way.

First of all, the American people are inundated with advertisement after advertisement of you buy, buy, buy. You've got to have the latest thing. The iPad 1 isn't any good anymore, you've got to have the iPad 2. The iPhone 4, now you've got to have iPhone 4S. Now you've got to have the 5b, now you've got to have the 6c.

I'm used to my films having little effect on making the world a better place.

15 of the 19 [September 11th] hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Greed has been with human beings forever. We have a number of things in our species that you would call 'the dark side,' and greed is one of them. If you don't put certain structures in place or restrictions on those parts of our being that come from that dark place, then it gets out of control.

If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him.

It really is disgusting when a guy in a ball cap with a high school education is the one asking the tough questions.

Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in - democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It's not about any of those things now. It's about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed.

The vast majority of the guns in the U.S. are sold to white people who live in the suburbs or the country. When we fantasize about being mugged or home invaded, what's the image of the perpetrator in our heads? Is it the freckled-face kid from down the street - or is it someone who is, if not black, at least poor?

North Korea has taught a great lesson to all the countries in the world, especially the rogue countries of dictatorships or whatever: if you don't want to be invaded by America, get some nuclear weapons.

You can't regulate child labor. You can't regulate slavery. Some things are just wrong.

If the Founding Fathers could have looked into a crystal ball and seen AK-47s and Glock semi-automatic pistols, I think they would say, you know, 'That's not really what we mean when we say bear arms.'

The highest courage is to dare to be yourself in the face of adversity. Choosing right over wrong, ethic over convenience, and truth over popularity ... these are choices that measure your life. Travel the path of integrity without looking back, for there is never a wrong time to do the right thing.

There is nowhere in the four Gospels where Jesus uses the word 'homosexual.'

WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions.

Librarians see themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment. You got a thousand Mother Joneses at the barricades! I love the librarians, and I am grateful for them!

Documentaries are a form of journalism.

Under Reagan came the idea of putting your pension plan in the stock market, which wasn't a guaranteed pension.

One thing I learned as a journalist is that there is at least one disgruntled person in every workplace in America - and at least double that number with a conscience. Hard as they try, they simply can't turn their heads away from an injustice when they see one taking place.

I'm not a proselytizer. I was raised Catholic. I am a Catholic.

A lot of political people, especially people on the left, have forgotten the importance of humor as an incredible weapon, and a vehicle through which to affect change.

Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash.

Nobody was talking about healthcare until 'Sicko' came out.

If anything, I don't have to convince the American public that we have a broken health-care system. I think the majority of Americans since they have to go through that health-care system, already know it.

Our laws demand that a corporation have a fiduciary responsibility with shareholders to maximize profits. They are legally required to make as much money as possible, any way possible within 'the law.'

A government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with.

Oprah's got good politics, she's got a good heart, and she'll have us all up Jazzercising at six in the morning. This cannot be a bad thing, and reading a book while we're Jazzercising. So America would be better off if Oprah were president.

Since 9/11, the Bush administration has used that tragic event as a justification to rip up our constitution and our civil liberties. And I honestly believe that one or two 9/11s, and martial law will be declared in our country and we're inching towards a police state.

Capitalism would have never let me be a filmmaker, living in Flint, Michigan with a high school education. I was going to have to make that happen myself.

I made 'Bowling for Columbine' in the hope the school shootings would stop and that we would address the issue of how easy it is to get a gun in the United States, and tragically, those school shootings continue.

We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times.

My dad was an assembly line worker at AC Spark Plug, which was a division of General Motors, and his job was to build and then inspect the little spark plugs as they came off the line.

I say one evil empire down...one to go.

Hope for the best is what we do, right from the moment we're born.

If you believe in equality, if you believe in standing up for the rights of all, especially for people most affected by bigotry and discrimination, then you have no choice but to be present and accounted for when it comes to standing up for gays and lesbians in our society.

When I make a film, I'm not doing it purely for political reasons. If I just wanted to do that, I'd run for office.

I was kind of a strange child. My parents knew early on that something must have been wrong with me. I crawled backwards until I was two, but had Kennedy's inaugural address memorized by the time I was six.

The media love to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up about 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.

We're never gonna get rid of crazy people. They've been around for thousands of years - they'll continue to be around; they'll continue to do horrible things.

You can't debate satire. Either you get it or you don't.

I don't 'support the troops' or any of those other hollow and hypocritical platitudes uttered by Republicans and frightened Democrats. Here's what I do support: I support them coming home. I support them being treated well.

How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?

Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy.

Most people don't see themselves as Democrats or Republicans. They see themselves as Americans.

How about that McDonald's two blocks from Ground Zero? That's killed more people than the 19 hijackers.

I've made a lot of enemies in all the right places, and there aren't enough hours in the day to respond to either the well-financed corporate hacks or the lowly stalkers who seek to libel me or make a buck off the fact that I'm a well-known person.

The money to fund great things and innovations and programs is gone in our lifetime; it's all gone to debt. So we won't be able to solve global warming or have the transportation that we needed for the 21st century. We should be supporting people with great ideas, but it's gone, and now it's gotta be paid back with interest to banks in China.

I have enormous respect for anyone who would offer to sacrifice their life to defend my right to live. Is there any greater gift one can give another?

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

The worst way to defend our freedom is to let our leaders start taking away our freedoms! It is exactly during times like these [a national crisis] that we need more freedom of speech, a strong and critical press, and a citizenry that is not afraid to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes.

The No. 1 cause of bankruptcies is medical bills.

Capitalism and democracy are the opposite of each other. Capitalism is a system that guarantees that a few are going to do very well, and everybody else is going to serve the few. Democracy means everybody has a seat at the table. Everybody.

I'm not a pundit. I'm not an analyst. I don't want to participate in the existing debate that's going on about whether or not you should be able to have as many guns as you want to have or that guns are even the problem.

I don't support the troops, America, and neither do you.

If the guy out in the woods with the Michigan Militia is a real estate negotiator, instead of some crackpot, and has a normal life, that's unnerving. You don't want to think it's as normal as the guy next door, hedging his lawn. It's easier to demonize or separate them off from 'us.'

I think there are few things more patriotic than taking the time to make your country a better place.

I think as a filmmaker my first contribution would just be to make a good movie that people would love to see and leave the theatre charged, with a sense of excitement.

Halliburton is not a 'company' doing business in Iraq. It is a war profiteer, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested – or worse.

[Librarians] are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them.

Jesus told us that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us.

In accordance to the principles of doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

The idea that cinema can be dangerous is a great idea.

I was a good little boy and a good student. I've never been arrested.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

I was taught from a very early age that it was probably the most American thing you can do is to question what's going on and to try to fix things that you see that aren't right. I believed that as a young person, and I believe that today.

There's politics in all aspects of our daily lives.

There Is No Terrorist Threat In This Country. This Is A Lie. This Is The Biggest Lie We've Been Told.

If I were a capitalist I would not give my employees health insurance with no deductible, which I do, including dental, and paid pregnancy leave. That's not called capitalism, that's called being a Christian and someone who believes in democracy, so that everyone should get a fair slice of the pie.

The entire business world has figured out how to make huge buckets of money without hiring us to work for them.

Middle class jobs prevent crime and violence.

I went without health insurance until 'Roger & Me,' basically - from about age 20 till about age 35. With 'Roger & Me,' I joined the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild, and since then I've had excellent health care managed by the union.

People of my age who went to college, go into college, you know what it cost back then? Nothing or next to nothing. At the most, you had to work at Dairy Queen during the summer and that would pay for your college education.

The movie theater is never going away. If that was a case why are there still restaurants? People still have kitchens in their home!

If your bank took bailout money, take your money out of that bank and put it in a credit union. Credit unions are owned by the people who have their money in the credit union.

I'm a highly flawed individual, as we all are, and because I was raised by Jesuits, I'm constantly, 'What is it about me and what I can do to be better?'

The American public believes that health care is a right and not a commodity.

I'm going to guess Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I'm sure most people think women should be paid the same as men if they're doing the same job. I think we all want good schools for our kids. If we made that list, we actually are in agreement on more things.

Television has its own award. It's called the Emmy. It's a good award. I like it. I have one. But you don't see movies like 'The King's Speech' win Oscars and then go to TV and qualify for Emmys. In documentaries, some networks have been able to game the system.

I've read stories of slave owners who were very generous. They didn't keep them in shackles, they didn't whip the slaves, they built schools and churches for them, free housing, free food, free everything. It's wrong. No matter how nice you make it look, it's wrong.

There's no violence coming from the Occupy protesters.

Nobody has been arrested on Wall Street for the crash of 2008. They're not paying their fair share of the taxes. And now with the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court, they get to buy politicians up out in the open.

No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?

I don't want to do anything that violates my own personal code of ethics and morals.

The products built in the factories of G.M., Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps.

I've always felt so grateful that I dropped out of school, that I never had to do a thesis. I wouldn't know how to organise and structure myself to film so that B follows A and C follows B.

In America, we don't, in daily discourse, use the words 'capitalism' or 'socialism.' They've been kind of nonexistent words, I would say, amongst the general public.

I was one of the first 18-year-olds in the United States elected to public office right after 18-year-olds got the right to vote back in the early '70s. I ran for the Board of Education.

The health insurance industry does not like to pay out claims, because they don't make money. The only way they can make a profit is if they don't pay for your operation. If they pay for your operation and your doctor's appointment and your pharmaceuticals, they don't make any money.

I'd feel bad if I had you come into a theater and you leave feeling ripped off.

My films don't have instant impact because they're dense with ideas that people have not thought about. It takes a while for the American public to wrap its head around some of the things I'm saying.

We have to see that we're a part of each other, and we have to take care of each other. The reason why they have universal health care in Canada and Britain, these other places? Because they believe if one suffers, everybody suffers.

The left, liberals, believe that if we just have more gun control laws, all the problems are going to go away. Well, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think - yes, it will, it will be reduced. There's no question about that.

The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich.

There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.

Somehow, I don't think Jesus came to Earth to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire, I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do.

The purpose of art actually is, in many cases, to make you feel quite uncomfortable. Or at least to go to that place that's already of discomfort inside of you and tap into that.

Capitalism means that a few people will do very well, and the rest will serve the few.

I hate to say it, but killing is our way. We began America with genocide, then built it with slaves. The shootings will continue. It's who we are.

I want Americans to realize that we are the owners of this country, and that one person can make a difference.

There's been almost a dozen films that have been made against me. There's actually more films made attacking me than films I've made.

Listen friends, you have to face the truth: You are never going to be rich... The system is rigged in favor of the few, and your name is not among them, not now and not ever.

Every parent wants to do what's best for their child. Whatever I can afford, I'm going to get my kid the best education I can get.

It's not surprising to me that in a country born of racial genocide, the issue of race is still an open wound on the American soul. We haven't dealt with it.

The Justice Department needs to investigate how Goldman Sachs was able to steer things in such a manner through their former employees in the Bush administration, so that in the end Goldman's competitors have disappeared and Goldman is left standing.