When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how childhood experiences of conflict are different from those in the past.
Lyndon B. Johnson's quote highlights the stark differences in the nature and frequency of global conflicts during his youth compared to the present. He reminisces about a simpler time when such geopolitical tensions were not as pervasive or dominating in daily life, illustrating a longing for an era of fewer global crises.
In practice
In a speech about peace, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of stability for future generations.
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.
Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
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.
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.
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.
If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.
I knew from history that war comes with frightening regularity, often fought over the same ground and similar causes as previous conflicts.
The Europeans not only colonialized most of the world, they began to colonialize information about the world and its people. In order to do this, they had to forget, or pretend to forget, all they had previously known abut the Africans.
The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.
The shot heard round the world.
I understood when I was quite small that there were two special things about the Jews. That we'd endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us, and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell.
There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.
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