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Presidents Quickly Realize That While A Single Act Might Destroy The World They Live In, No One Single Decision Can Make Life Suddenly Better Or Can Turn History Around For The Good.

-Lyndon B. Johnson

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Presidents Quickly Realize That

Lyndon B. Johnson

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Presidents Quickly Realize That While A Single Act Might Destroy The World They Live In, No One Single Decision Can Make Life Suddenly Better Or Can Turn History Around For The Good.

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In Modern Warfare There Are No Victors; There Are Only Survivors.

No Man Should Think That Peace Comes Easily. Peace Does Not Come By Merely Wanting It, Or Shouting For It, Or Marching Down Main Street For It. Peace Is Built Brick By Brick, Mortared By The Stubborn Effort And The Total Energy And Imagination Of Able And Dedicated Men. And It Is Built In The Living Faith That, In The End, Man Can And Will Master His Own Destiny.

It May Be, It Just May Be, That Life As We Know It With Its Humanity Is More Unique Than Many Have Thought.

How Incredible It Is That In This Fragile Existence We Should Hate And Destroy One Another. There Are Possibilities Enough For All Who Will Abandon Mastery Over Others To Pursue Mastery Over Nature. There Is World Enough For All To Seek Their Happiness In Their Own Way.

Jack Was Out Kissing Babies While I Was Out Passing Bills. Someone Had To Tend The Store.

Not Now, Or Not There, Or Too Much, Or Not At All.

But More Classrooms And More Teachers Are Not Enough. We Must Seek An Educational System Which Grows In Excellence As It Grows In Size. This Means Better Training For Our Teachers. It Means Preparing Youth To Enjoy Their Hours Of Leisure As Well As Their Hours Of Labor. It Means Exploring New Techniques Of Teaching, To Find New Ways To Stimulate The Love Of Learning And The Capacity For Creation.

We Are Not About To Send American Boys 9 Or 10 Thousand Miles Away From Home To Do What Asian Boys Ought To Be Doing For Themselves.

All I Have I Would Have Given Gladly Not To Be Standing Here Today.

For Me, It Is A Deep Personal Tragedy. I Know That The World Shares The Sorrow That Mrs. Kennedy And Her Family Bear. I Will Do My Best. That Is All I Can Do. I Ask For Your Help - And God's.

The Great Society Is A Place Where Men Are More Concerned With The Quality Of Their Goods Than With The Quantity Of Their Goods.

You've Got To Work Things Out In The Cloakroom, And When You've Got Them Worked Out, You Can Debate A Little Before You Vote.

Voting Is The First Duty Of Democracy.

We Come To Reason, Not To Dominate. We Do Not Seek To Have Our Way, But To Find A Common Way.

All That Hubert Needs Over There Is A Gal To Answer The Phone And A Pencil With An Eraser On It.

When I Was Young, Poverty Was So Common That We Didn't Know It Had A Name.

Any Man Who's Not Willing To Take Half A Loaf In A Negotiation, Well, That Man Never Went To Bed Hungry.

Every Man Of Any Education Would Rather Be Called A Rascal, Than Accused Of Deficiency In The Graces.

The Job, Of Course, Will Never Be Finished. For A Nation, As For An Individual, Education Is A Perpetually Unfinished Journey, A Continuing Process Of Discovery.

And Americans Have Always Stood Ready To Pay The Cost In Energy And Treasure Which Are Needed To Make Those Goals A Reality.

Government Is Best Which Is Closest To The People. Yet That Belief Is Betrayed By Those State And Local Officials Who Engage In Denying The Right Of Citizens To Vote. Their Actions Serve Only To Assure That Their State Governments And Local Governments Shall Be Remote From The People, Least Representative Of The People's Will And Least Responsive To The People's Wishes.

In Asia We Face An Ambitious And Aggressive China, But We Have The Will And We Have The Strength To Help Our Asian Friends Resist That Ambition. Sometimes Our Folks Get A Little Impatient. Sometimes They Rattle Their Rockets Some, And They Bluff About Their Bombs. But We Are Not About To Send American Boys 9 Or 10,000 Miles Away From Home To Do What Asian Boys Ought To Be Doing For Themselves.

We Are Now Embarked On Another Venture To Put The American Dream To Work In Meeting The New Demands Of A New Day. Once Again We Must Start Where Men Would Improve Their Society Have Always Known They Must Begin - With An Educational System Restudied, Reinforced, And Revitalized.

I Feel Like I Just Grabbed A Big Juicy Worm With A Right Sharp Hook In The Middle Of It.

But If Future Generations Are To Remember Us More With Gratitude Than With Sorrow, We Must Achieve More Than Just The Miracles Of Technology. We Must Also Leave Them A Glimpse Of The World As God Really Made It, Not Just As It Looked When We Got Through With It.

I Will Not Seek, And I Will Not Accept The Nomination Of My Party For Another Term As Your President.

I Am Proud To Be A Member Of A Party That Opens Its Doors To All Men--and Closes Its Hearts To None.

Our Understanding Of How To Live With One Another Is Still Far Behind Our Knowledge Of How To Destroy One Another.

I Hear The Headlines On The Radio, See Them On Tv And Read Them In The Paper. When I Hear From The Men Out There, I Sometimes Don't Believe They Are Talking About The Same Situation.

Conservation Is Ethically Sound. It Is Rooted In Our Love Of The Land, Our Respect For The Rights Of Others, Our Devotion To The Rule Of Law.

The Exercise Of Power In This Century Has Meant For All Of Us In The United States Not Arrogance, But Agony.

All The Historians Are Harvard People. It Just Isn't Fair. Poor Old Hoover From West Branch, Iowa, Had No Chance With That Crowd;nor Did Andrew Jackson From Tennessee. Nor Does Lyndon Johnson From Stonewall, Texas. It Just Isn't Fair.

Education Is 'the Guardian Genius Of Our Democracy.' Nothing Really Means More To Our Future, Not Our Military Defenses, Not Our Missiles Or Our Bombers, Not Our Production Economy, Not Even Our Democratic System Of Government. For All Of These Are Worthless If We Lack The Brain Power To Support And Sustain Them.

New Laboratories And Centers Will Help Our Schools Lift Their Standards Of Excellence And Explore New Methods Of Teaching. These Centers Will Provide Special Training For Those Who Need And Deserve Special Treatment.

If A Single Act Of Folly Was More Responsible For This Explosion Than Any Other It Was The Arbitrary And Dangerous Announced Decision That The Straits Of Tiran Would Be Closed. The Right Of Innocent, Maritime Passage Must Be Preserved For All Nations

I Seldom Think Of Politics More Than Eighteen Hours A Day.

Evil Acts Of The Past Are Never Rectified By Evil Acts Of The Present.

Greater Love Hath No Man Than To Attend The Episcopal Church With His Wife.

There Are No Favorites In My Office. I Treat Them All With The Same General Inconsideration.

We Must Open The Doors Of Opportunity.

When A Person Finds Themselves Predisposed To Complaining About How Little They Are Regarded By Others, Let Them Reflect How Little They Have Contributed To The Happiness Of Others.

The Prospect Of Penury In Age Is So Gloomy And Terrifying That Every Man Who Looks Before Him Must Resolve To Avoid It; And It Must Be Avoided Generally By The Science Of Sparing. For, Though In Every Age There Are Some Who, By Bold Adventures, Or By Favorable Accidents, Rise Suddenly To Riches, Yet It Is Dangerous To Indulge Hopes Of Such Rare Events; And The Bulk Of Mankind Must Owe Their Affluence To Small And Gradual Profits, Below Which Their Expense Must Be Resolutely Reduced.

The Vote Is The Most Powerful Instrument Ever Devised By Man For Breaking Down Injustice And Destroying The Terrible Walls Which Imprison Men Because They Are Different From Other Men.

The Best Fertilizer For A Piece Of Land Is The Footprints Of Its Owner.

It Is Always A Strain When People Are Being Killed. I Don't Think Anybody Has Held This Job Who Hasn't Felt Personally Responsible For Those Being Killed.

It Is The Excitement Of Becoming - Always Becoming, Trying, Probing, Falling, Resting, And Trying Again- But Always Trying And Always Gaining

Organized Crime Constitutes Nothing Less Than A Guerilla War Against Society.

The Best Way To Begin Disarming Is To Begin-and The United States Is Ready To Conclude Firm Agreements In These Areas And To Consider Any Other Reasonable Proposal.

The Law Cannot Save Those Who Deny It But Neither Can The Law Serve Any Who Do Not Use It. The History Of Injustice And Inequality Is A History Of Disuse Of The Law.

Education Is Not A Problem. Education Is An Opportunity.

The Russians Feared Ike. They Didn't Fear Me.

When I Was A Boy We Didn't Wake Up With Vietnam And Have Cyprus For Lunch And The Congo For Dinner.

A President's Hardest Task Is Not To Do What Is Right, But To Know What Is Right.

...international Education Cannot Be The Work Of One Country. It Is The Responsibility And Promise Of All Nations. It Calls For Free Exchange And Full Collaboration...the Knowledge Of Our Citizens Is One Treasure Which Grows Only When It Is Shared.

One Hundred Years Ago, The Slave Was Freed. One Hundred Years Later, The Negro Remains In Bondage To The Color Of His Skin.

Yesterday Is Not Ours To Recover, But Tomorrow Is Ours To Win Or Lose.

In Addition To Our Existing Programs, I Will Recommend A New Program For Schools And Students With A First-year Authorization Of $1,500 Million.

Sometimes Among Our More Sophisticated, Self-styled Intellectuals--and I Say Self-styled Advisedly; The Real Intellectual I Am Notsure Would Ever Feel This Way--some Of Them Are More Concerned With Appearance Than They Are With Achievement. They Are More Concerned With Style Then They Are With Mortar, Brick And Concrete. They Are More Concerned With Trivia And The Superficial Than They Are With The Things That Have Really Built America.

We Have Talked Long Enough In This Country About Equal Rights. It Is Time Now To Write The Next Chapter - And To Write It In The Books Of Law.

In 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar, The Second President Of The Republic Of Texas And The Father Of Texas Education, Declared: 'the Cultivated Mind Is The Guardian Genius Of Democracy. It Is The Only Dictator That Free Man Acknowledges. It Is The Only Security That Free Man Desires.'

It's Too Bad, But The Way American People Are, Now That They Have All This Capability, Instead Of Taking Advantage Of It, They'll Probably Just Piss It All Away.

The Thing I Would Like To Do Most Is To Find Somehow To Bring Peace To The World. It Has Eluded Me.

Every Citizen, Regardless Of His Race, Creed, Or Color, Is Entitled To Equal Justice.

I'm Gonna Hunker Down Like A Jack Rabbit In A Dust Storm

If We Quit Vietnam, Tomorrow We'll Be Fighting In Hawaii, And Next Week We'll Have To Fight In San Francisco.

Air Pollution Is A Threat To Health, Especially Of Older Persons. It Contributes Significantly To The Rising Rates Of Chronic Respiratory Ailments. It Stains Our Cities And Towns With Ugliness, Soiling And Corroding Whatever It Touches. Its Damage Extends To Our Forests And Farmlands As Well. The Economic Toll For Our Neglect Amounts To Billions Of Dollars Each Year.

Let No One Ever Think For A Moment That National Debate Means National Division.

I Am A Freeman, An American, A United States Senator, And A Democrat, In That Order.

What Convinces Is Conviction. Believe In The Argument You're Advancing. If You Don't You're As Good As Dead. The Other Person Will Sense That Something Isn't There, And No Chain Of Reasoning, No Matter How Logical Or Elegant Or Brilliant, Will Win Your Case For You.

Every Funeral May Justly Be Considered As A Summons To Prepare For That State Into Which It Shows Us That We Must Some Time Enter; And The Summons Is More Loud And Piercing As The Event Of Which It Warns Us Is At Less Distance. To Neglect At Any Time Preparation For Death Is To Sleep On Our Post At A Siege; But To Omit It In Old Age Is To Sleep At An Attack.

The Family Is The Corner Stone Of Our Society.

President Can't Swim.

I Believe That The Essence Of Government Lies With Unceasing Concern For The Welfare And Dignity And Decency And Innate Integrity Of Life For Every Individual. I Dont Like To Say This And Wish I Didnt Have To Add These Words To Make It Clear But I Willregardless Of Color, Creed, Ancestry, Sex Or Age.

I Once Told Nixon That The Presidency Is Like Being A Jackass Caught In A Hail Storm. You've Got To Just Stand There And Take It.

In This Age When There Can Be No Losers In Peace And No Victors In War; We Must Recognize The Obligation To Match National Strength With National Restraint.

It Is Happily And Kindly Provided That In Every Life There Are Certain Pauses, And Interruptions, Which Force Consideration Upon The Careless, And Seriousness Upon The Light, Points Of Time Where One Course Of Action Ends And Another Begins.

Once We Considered Education A Public Expense; We Know Now That It Is A Public Investment.

There Can No Longer Be Anyone Too Poor To Vote.

The Guns And The Bombs, The Rockets And The Warships, Are All Symbols Of Human Failure.

He's Got Great Vision. If He Can Get Outside, He Can Take It All The Way. That's What We Were Worried About.

If We Become Tow People-the Suburban Affluent And The Urban Poor, Each Filled With Mistrust And Fear Of The Other-then We Shall Effectively Cripple Each Generation To Come.

There Are Some, I Know, Who See Beautification As A Frill, As An Extra, Or As Something That Is Luxurious Enough To Postpone. Well, They Make Me Impatient Because I Am Convinced That Beauty And Order In Our Environment Are Not Frills. I Am Convinced That They Are Urgent Necessities Because They Will Determine Whether Our Grandchildren Can Live In A Decent Land Or Whether They Will Be Surrounded By Glittering Junkheaps.

When The Family Collapses, It Is The Children That Are Usually Damaged. When It Happens On A Massive Scale, The Community Itself Is Crippled.

If You're Not Listening, You're Not Learning.

I Pray We Are Still A Young And Courageous Nation, That We Have Not Grown So Old And So Fat And So Prosperous That All We Can Think About Is To Sit Back With Our Arms Around Our Money Bags. If We Choose To Do That I Have No Doubt That The Smoldering Fires Will Burst Into Flame And Consume Us - Dollars And All.

For The Individual, Education Is The Path To Achievement And Fulfillment; For The Nation, It Is A Path To A Society That Is Not Only Free But Civilized; And For The World, It Is The Path To Peace - For It Is Education That Places Reason Over Force.

There Are Plenty Of Recommendations On How To Get Out Of Trouble Cheaply And Fast. Most Of Them Come Down To This: Deny Your Responsibility.

An Unspoiled River Is A Very Rare Thing In This Nation Today. Their Flow And Vitality Have Been Harnessed By Dams And Too Often They Have Been Turned Into Open Sewers By Communities And By Industries. It Makes Us All Very Fearful That All Rivers Will Go This Way Unless Somebody Acts Now To Try To Balance Our River Development.

The Separation Of Church And State Is A Source Of Strength, But The Conscience Of Our Nation Does Not Call For Separation Between Men Of State And Faith In The Supreme Being.

But, Most Of All, The Great Society Is Not A Safe Harbor, A Resting Place, A Final Objective, A Finished Work. It Is A Challenge Constantly Renewed, Beckoning Us Toward A Destiny Where The Meaning Of Our Lives Matches The Marvelous Products Of Our Labor.

You Do Not Take A Person Who, For Years, Has Been Hobbled By Chains And Liberate Him, Bring Him Up To The Starting Line Of A Race And Then Say, "you Are Free To Compete With All The Others," And Still Justly Believe That You Have Been Completely Fair. We Seek Not Just Legal Equity But Human Ability, Not Just Equality As A Right And A Theory But Equality As A Fact And Equality As A Result.

We Have Heard All Of Our Lives How, After The Civil War Was Over, The South Went Back To Straighten Itself Out And Make A Living Again. It Was For Many Years A Voiceless Part Of The Government. The Balance Of Power Moved Away From It--to The North And The East. The Problems Of The North And The East Became The Big Problem Of The Country And Nobody Paid Much Attention To The Economic Unbalance The South Had Left As Its Only Choice.

We Live In A World That Has Narrowed Into A Neighborhood Before It Has Broadened Into A Brotherhood.

I Don't Have Any Handicap. I Am All Handicap.

Watch Their Hands, Watch Their Eyes. Read Eyes. No Matter What A Man Is Saying To You, It's Not As Important As What You Can Read In His Eyes. The Most Important Thing A Man Has To Tell You Is What He's Not Telling You; The Most Important Thing He Has To Say Is What He's Trying Not To Say.

I Am A Compromiser And Maneuverer. I Try To Get Something. That's The Way Our System Works.

You Do Not Examine Legislation In The Light Of The Benefits It Will Convey If Properly Administered, But In The Light Of The Wrongs It Would Do And The Harms It Would Cause If Improperly Administered.

I Cannot Say And No Man Could Say That No More Will Be Asked Of Us.

Above The Pyramid On The Great Seal Of The United States It Says In Latin: "god Has Favored Our Undertaking." God Will Not Favor Everything That We Do. It Is Rather Our Duty To Divine His Will.

We Decided That Our First Job Was To Help The Schools Serving The Children From The Very Lowest Income Groups. Those Families Constitute The Number One Burden, The Number One Burden In This Nation On The School Systems.

Success Only Feeds The Appetite Of Aggression.

If Anybody Has Any Idea Of Hoarding Our Silver Coins, Let Me Say This. Treasury Has A Lot Of Silver On Hand, And It Can Be, And It Will Be Used To Keep The Price Of Silver In Line With Its Value In Our Present Silver Coin. There Will Be No Profit In Holding Them Out Of Circulation For The Value Of Their Silver Content.

So Far Are We Generally From Thinking What We Often Say Of The Shortness Of Life, That At The Time When It Is Necessarily Shortest We Form Projects Which We Delay To Execute, Indulge Such Expectations As Nothing But Along Train Of Events Can Gratify, And Suffer Those Passions To Gain Upon Us Which Are Only Excusable In The Prime Of Life.

There Is No Issue Of States' Rights Or National Rights. There Is Only The Struggle For Human Rights.

It Is Very Seldom That Any One Is In Prison For An Ordinary Crime Unless Early In Life He Entered A Path That Almost Invariably Led To The Prison Gate. Most Of The Inmates Are The Children Of The Poor. In Many Instances They Are Either Orphans Or Half-orphans; Their Homes Were The Streets And Byways Of Big Cities, And Their Paths Naturally And Inevitably Took Them To Their Final Fate.

In Many Places, Classrooms Are Overcrowded And Curricula Are Outdated. Most Of Our Qualified Teachers Are Underpaid, And Many Of Our Paid Teachers Are Unqualified. So We Must Give Every Child A Place To Sit And A Teacher To Learn From. Poverty Must Not Be A Bar To Learning, And Learning Must Offer An Escape From Poverty.

It (the Heart) Is Supposed In Popular Language, To Be The Seat Sometimes, Of Courage, Sometimes Of Affection, Sometimes Of Honesty, Or Baseness.

It Is A Truism That Education Is No Longer A Luxury. Education In This Day And Age Is A Necessity.

Our Society Is Illuminated By The Spiritual Insights Of The Hebrew Prophets. America And Israel Have A Common Love Of Human Freedom, And They Have A Common Faith In A Democratic Way Of Life.

Doing The Right Thing Is Not The Problem. Knowing What The Right Thing Is, That's The Challenge.

The Atomic Bomb Certainly Is The Most Powerful Of All Weapons, But It Is Conclusively Powerful And Effective Only In The Hands Of The Nation Which Controls The Sky.

The Classroom - Not The Trench - Is The Frontier Of Freedom Now And Forevermore.

Art Is A Nation's Most Precious Heritage. For It Is In Our Works Of Art That We Reveal To Ourselves And To Others The Inner Vision Which Guides Us As A Nation. And Where There Is No Vision, The People Perish.

Republicans Simply Don't Know How To Manage The Economy.

A President Roosevelt Comes Only Once In A Century. I Believe God Knew And Does Know Of The Need Of The World At This Moment. I Don't Believe President Roosevelt Is An Accident In Time, Or That It Is An Accident That He Is President For A Third Time. I Believe That Franklin D. Roosevelt Truly Is The Voice Of Liberty In The World.

In The Great Society, Work Shall Be An Outlet For Mans Interests And Desires. Each Individual Shall Have Full Opportunity To Use His Capacities In Employment Which Satisfies Personally And Contributes Generally To The Quality Of The Nations Life.

For The First Time In Our History It Is Possible To Conquer Poverty.

As We Maintain The Vigil Of Peace, We Must Remember That Justice Is A Vigil, Too - A Vigil We Must Keep In Our Own Streets And Schools And Among The Lives Of All Our People - So That Those Who Died Here On Their Native Soil Shall Not Have Died In Vain.

Emancipation Was A Proclamation, But Not A Fact.

Boys, It Is Just Like The Alamo. Somebody Should Have By God Helped Those Texans. I'm Going To Vietnam.

I Want To Make A Policy Statement. I Am Unabashedly In Favor Of Women.

You Have Your Own Difficulties. We Watch, With Friendly Confidence In Your Capacity To Merge Differences In The Grand Dream Of Canadian Design.

The Last Thing I Wanted To Do Was To Be A Wartime President.

He That In The Latter Part Of His Life Too Strictly Inquires What He Has Done, Can Very Seldom Receive From His Own Heart Such An Account As Will Give Him Satisfaction.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel? We Don't Even Have A Tunnel; We Don't Even Know Where The Tunnel Is.

A Few Years Make Such Havoc In Human Generations That We Soon See Ourselves Deprived Of Those With Whom We Entered The World, And Whom The Participation Of Pleasures Or Fatigues Had Endeared To Our Remembrance.

Whoever Won't Fight When The President Calls Him, Deserves To Be Kicked Back In His Hole And Kept There.

...that Though They May Refuse To Grow Wise, They Must Inevitably Grow Old; ...that The Proper Solaces Of Age Are Not Music And Compliments, But Wisdom And Devotion; That Those Who Are So Unwilling To Quit The World Will Soon Be Driven From It; And That It Is Therefore In Their Interest To Retire While There Yet Remain A Few Hours Of Nobler Employments.

We Must Open The Doors Of Opportunity. We Must Equip Our People To Walk Through Those Doors.

A Third Place To Build The Great Society Is In The Classrooms Of America. There Your Children's Lives Will Be Shaped. Our Society Will Not Be Great Until Every Young Mind Is Set Free To Scan The Farthest Reaches Of Thought And Imagination. We Are Still Far From That Goal.

We Do This In Order To Slow Down Aggression. We Do This To Increase The Confidence Of The Brave People Of South Vietnam Who Have Bravely Born This Brutal Battle For So Many Years With So Many Casualties. And We Do This To Convince The Leaders Of North Vietnam-and All Who Seek To Share Their Conquest-of A Simple Fact: We Will Not Be Defeated. We Will Not Grow Tired. We Will Not Withdraw Either Openly Or Under The Cloak Of A Meaningless Agreement.

We Still Seek No Wider War.

The Roman Empire Controlled The World Because It Could Build Roads . . . The British Empire Was Dominant Because It Had Ships. In The Air Age We Were Powerful Because We Had Airplaines. Now The Communists Have Established A Foothold In Outer Space.

The American Indian, Once Proud And Free, Is Torn Now Between White And Tribal Values; Between The Politics And Language Of The White Man And His Own Historic Culture. His Problems, Sharpened By Years Of Defeat And Exploitation, Neglect And Inadequate Effort, Will Take Many Years To Overcome.

An Unfolding Technology Has Increased Our Economic Strength And Added To The Convenience Of Our Lives. But That Same Technology-we Know Now-carries Danger With It. From The Great Smoke Stacks Of Industry And From The Exhausts Of Motors And Machines, 130 Million Tons Of Soot, Carbon And Grime Settle Over The People And Shroud The Nation's Cities Each Year. From Towns, Factories, And Stockyards, Wastes Pollute Our Rivers And Streams, Endangering The Waters We Drink And Use.

I'm Willin' For Any Solution - Religious, Political. I'm Not Going To Keep Offerin' To Negotiate So Much Because They Turn Us Down Each Time. It Indicates A Weakness On Our Part.

Better To Have Him Inside The Tent Pissing Out, Than Outside The Tent Pissing In.

I'm The Only President You've Got.

It Is Important That The United States Remain A Two-party System. I'm A Fellow Who Likes Small Parties And The Republican Party Can't Be Too Small To Suit Me.

To Hunger For Use And To Go Unused Is The Worst Hunger Of All.

If I Could Get One Message To You It Would Be This: The Future Of This Country And The Welfare Of The Free World Depends Upon Our Success In Space. There Is No Room In This Country For Any But A Fully Cooperative, Urgently Motivated All-out Effort Toward Space Leadership. No One Person, No One Company, No One Government Agency, Has A Monopoly On The Competence, The Missions, Or The Requirements For The Space Program.

The Air Force Comes In Every Morning And Says, 'bomb, Bomb, Bomb' ... And Then The State Department Comes In And Says, 'not Now, Or Not There, Or Too Much, Or Not At All.'

Poverty Must Not Be A Bar To Learning And Learning Must Offer An Escape From Poverty.

This Right To Vote Is The Basic Right Without Which All Others Are Meaningless. It Gives People, People As Individuals, Control Over Their Own Destinies.

Justice Requires Us To Remember That When Any Citizen Denies His Fellow, Saying, 'his Color Is Not Mine,' Or 'his Beliefs Are Strange And Different,' In That Moment He Betrays America, Though His Forebears Created This Nation.

For It Was Only After I Could Become President Of This Country That I Could Really See In All Its Hopeful And Troubling Implications Just How Much The Hopes Of Our Citizens And The Security Of Our Nation And The Real Strength Of Our Democracy Depended Upon The Learning And The Understanding Of Our People.

The Time Has Come When We Cannot Be So Careless. Unless We Do Better, We May Suffer Through A Stark Emergency Of The Environment. We May Create A Hostile World: A World To Bruise Ourselves Against; A World Of Sprawling Cities, Unplanned Or Badly Planned; A World Whose Water Is Full Of Sludge, Whose Winds Are Full Of Soot; A World Whose Landscape Has Been Totally Neglected, Stripped, Marred, And Wasted. All Of This Need Not Happen If We Choose Well, And Particularly If We Plan Well And If We Act Well.

If Government Is To Serve Any Purpose It Is To Do For Others What They Are Unable To Do For Themselves.

Of Course, I May Go Into A Strange Bedroom Every Now And Then That I Don't Want You To Write About, But Otherwise You Can Write Everything.

Of Those To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Asked.

Great Responsibility

This Is A Moment That I Deeply Wish My Parents Could Have Lived To Share. My Father Would Have Enjoyed What You Have So Generously Said Of Me-and My Mother Would Have Believed It.

Extremism Is The Pursuit Of The Presidency Is An Unpardonable Vice. Moderation In The Affairs Of The Nation Is The Highest Virtue.

I Taught School In The Early Days Of My Manhood And I Think I Know Something About Mothers. There Is A Thread Of Aspiration That Runs Strong In Them. It Is The Fiber That Has Formed The Most Unselfish Creatures Who Inhabit This Earth. They Want Three Things Only; For Their Children To Be Fed, To Be Healthy, And To Make The Most Of Themselves.

Each Year More Than 100,000 High School Graduates, With Proved Ability, Do Not Enter College Because They Cannot Afford It. And If We Cannot Educate Today's Youth, What Will We Do In 1970 When Elementary Enrollment Will Be 5 Million Greater Than 1960? And High School Enrollment Will Rise By 5 Million. College Enrollment Will Increase By More Than 3 Million.

Today Our Problem Is Not Making Miracles, But Managing Them.

Every Child Must Be Encouraged To Get As Much Education As He Has The Ability To Take. We Want This Not Only For His Sake - But For The Nation's Sake.

You Never Want To Give A Man A Present When He's Feeling Good. You Want To Do It When He's Down.

It Will Help At Every State Along The Road To Learning. For The Pre-school Years We Will Help Needy Children Become Aware Of The Excitement Of Learning.

Every Citizen Will Be Able, In His Productive Years When He Is Earning, To Insure Himself Against The Ravages Of Illness In His Old Age.

I Do Not Find It Easy To Send The Flower Of Our Youth, Our Finest Young Men, Into Battle.

Education Will Not Cure All The Problems Of Society, But Without It No Cure For Any Problem Is Possible.

I May Not Worry As Much As Prime Minister Eshkol Does About Israel, But I Worry As Deeply.

Nothing Is More Despicable Than The Old Age Of A Passionate Man. When The Vigour Of Youth Fails Him, And His Amusements Pall With Frequent Repetition, His Occasional Rage Sinks By Decay Of Strength Into Peevishness; That Peevishness, For Want Of Novelty And Variety, Becomes Habitual; The World Falls Off From Around Him, And He Is Left, As Homer Expresses It, To Devour His Own Heart In Solitude And Contempt.

I Wake Up 5 A.m. Some Mornings And Hear The Planes Coming In At National Airport And I Think They Are Bombing Me.

This Nation, This Generation, In This Hour Has Man's First Chance To Build A Great Society, A Place Where The Meaning Of Man's Life Matches The Marvels Of Man's Labor.

No Nation In The World Has Had Greater Fortune Than Mine In Sharing A Continent With The People And The Nation Of Canada.

All Of Us Realize That War Requires Action. What Is Sometimes Harder For Us To Realize Is That Peace And Neutrality Also Require Action.

Every President Wants To Do Right.

But We Have Not Used Our Waters Well. Our Major Rivers Are Defiled By Noxious Debris. Pollutants From Cities And Industries Kill The Fish In Our Streams. Many Waterways Are Covered With Oil Slicks And Contain Growths Of Algae That Destroy Productive Life And Make The Water Unfit For Recreation. "polluted Water-no Swimming" Has Become A Familiar Sign On Too Many Beaches And Rivers. A Lake That Has Served Many Generations Of Men Now Can Be Destroyed By Man In Less Than One Generation.

Liberty Is Not Enough.

A Good President Does With Executive Power What Pablo Picasso Did With Paint. He Takes Bills Into New And Slightly Discomfiting Territory. He Puts Extra Eyes On Policies. He Moves The Mouth Of The Supreme Court From Where It Should Be To Where It Must Be.

Presidents Quickly Realize That While A Single Act Might Destroy The World They Live In, No One Single Decision Can Make Life Suddenly Better Or Can Turn History Around For The Good.

If We Must Disagree, Let's Disagree Without Being Disagreeable.

The Great Society Is A Place Where Every Child Can Find Knowledge To Enrich His Mind And Enlarge His Talents.

Nothing Is More Unjust, However Common, Than To Charge With Hypocrisy Him That Expresses Zeal For Those Virtues Which He Neglects To Practice; Since He May Be Sincerely Convinced Of The Advantages Of Conquering His Passions Without Having Yet Obtained The Victory As A Man May Be Confident Of The Advantages Of A Voyage Or A Journey, Without Having Courage Or Industry To Undertake It, And May Honestly Recommend To Others Those Attempts Which He Neglects Himself.

There Are No Problems We Cannot Solve Together, And Very Few That We Can Solve By Ourselves.

You Ain't Learnin' Nothin' When You're Talkin'.

Inspirational Presidential

The Experts Spent A Great Deal Of Time And Study Working Out A Formula Which Would Be Fair To Every State And Fair To Every County And Fair To Every Child, And Would Put The Education Dollar Where That Dollar Is Needed Most, Now.

The Poor Suffer Twice At The Rioter's Hands. First, His Destructive Fury Scars Their Neighborhood; Second, The Atmosphere Of Accommodation And Consent Is Changed To One Of Hostility And Resentment.

We Must Not Only Protect The Country Side And Save It From Destruction, We Must Restore What Has Been Destroyed And Salvage The Beauty And Charm Of Our Cities ... Once Our Natural Splendor Is Destroyed, It Can Never Be Recaptured. And Once Man Can No Longer Walk With Beauty Or Wonder At Nature, His Spirit Will Wither And His Sustenance Be Wasted.

In The Last Few Decades Entire New Categories Of Waste Have Come To Plague And Menace The American Scene. Pollution Is Growing At A Rapid Rate. Pollution Destroys Beauty And Menaces Health. It Cuts Down On Efficiency, Reduces Property Values And Raises Taxes. Almost All These Wastes And Pollutions Are The Result Of Activities Carried On For The Benefit Of Man. A Prime National Goal Must Be An Environment That Is Pleasing To The Senses And Healthy To Live In. Our Government Is Already Doing Much In This Field. We Have Made Significant Progress. But More Must Be Done.

For Every Generation, There Is A Destiny. For Some, History Decides. For This Generation, The Choice Must Be Our Own. [...] Our Destiny In The Midst Of Change Will Rest On The Unchanged Character Of Our People, And On Their Faith.

Every Man Has A Right To A Saturday Night Bath.

John F. Kennedy Was The Victim Of The Hate That Was A Part Of Our Country. It Is A Disease That Occupies The Minds Of The Few But Brings Danger To The Many.

The Crotch, Down Where Your Nuts Hang, Is Always A Little Too Tight.

Not Merely A Nation But A Nation Of Nations.

United States Of America

A Man Can Take A Little Bourbon Without Getting Drunk, But If You Hold His Mouth Open And Pour In A Quart, He's Going To Get Sick On It.

There Is Something More Important Than Any Ultimate Weapon. That Is The Ultimate Position-the Position Of Total Control Over Earth That Lies Somewhere Out In Space. That Is . . . The Distant Future, Though Not So Distant As We May Have Thought. Whoever Gains That Ultimate Position Gains Control, Total Control, Over The Earth, For The Purposes Of Tyranny Or For The Service Of Freedom

America Has Not Always Been Kind To Its Artists And Scholars. Somehow The Scientists Always Seem To Get The Penthouse While The Arts And Humanities Get The Basement.

Poverty Has Many Roots, But The Tap Root Is Ignorance.

Four. That's What I Want You To Remember. If You Don't Get Your Idea Across In The First Four Minutes, You Won't Do It. Four Sentences To A Paragraph. Four Letters To A Word. The Most Important Words In The English Language All Have Four Letters. Home. Love. Food. Land. Peace. . .i Know Peace Has Five Letters, But Any Damn Fool Knows It Should Have Four.

Peace Does Not Come Just Because We Wish For It. Peace Must Be Fought For. It Must Be Built Stone By Stone.

The Future Holds Little Hope For Any Government Where The Present Holds No Hope For The People.

He's A Nice Guy, But He Played Too Much Football With His Helmet Off.

If We Are To Live Together In Peace, We Must Come To Know Each Other Better.

For The College Years We Will Provide Scholarships To High School Students Of The Greatest Promise And Greatest Need And Guarantee Low-interest Loans To Students Continuing Their College Studies.

I Believe That The Country Weekly Acts As A Form Of Social Cement In Holding The Community Together.

Our Partnership Has Been Built On Four Pillars The First Pillar Is Peace. The Second Pillar Is Freedom. The Third Pillar Is Respect. The Fourth Pillar Is Cooperation.

A Perpetual Conflict With Natural Desires Seems To Be The Lot Of Our Present State. In Youth We Require Something Of The Tardiness And Frigidity Of Age; And In Age We Must Labour To Recall The Fire And Impetuosity Of Youth; In Youth We Must Learn To Respect, And In Age To Enjoy.

To Conclude That Women Are Unfitted To The Task Of Our Historic Society Seems To Me The Equivalent Of Closing Male Eyes To Female Facts.

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Ursula K. Le Guin

Oscar De La Renta

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