When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the normalization of poverty in society and how those experiencing it may not even recognize it as a distinct issue.
Lyndon B. Johnson's quote highlights the pervasive nature of poverty during his youth, illustrating how it was such a common experience that it lacked distinction or recognition. This suggests that societal conditions can shape perceptions of hardship, making individuals unaware of their own struggles because they are shared widely among their peers. It encourages reflection on the social context of poverty and the importance of naming and addressing such issues.
In practice
In a discussion about social issues, one might say, 'As Lyndon B. Johnson reflected, poverty was so common in his youth that it didn't even have a name.'
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.
What do you do when life blindfolds you and spins you around? We think it's our fault, that we're to blame, when really we should be focused on being gentle with ourselves.
I am older than everyone I ever knew. All my dogs are dead. Half a dozen cats, parakeets... all gone.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!
It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.
Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?
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