Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. · 1088 pages
Rating: (2K votes)
“What would have happened had he not been killed? He would certainly have had a rocky road to the nomination. The power of the Johnson administration and much of the party establishment was behind Humphrey. Still, the dynamism was behind Kennedy, and he might well have swept the convention. If nominated, he would most probably have beaten the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Individuals do make a difference to history. A Robert Kennedy presidency would have brought a quick end to American involvement in the Vietnam War. Those thousands of Americans—and many thousands more Vietnamese and Cambodians—who were killed from 1969 to 1973 would have been at home with their families. A Robert Kennedy presidency would have consolidated and extended the achievements of John Kennedy’s New Frontier and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The liberal tide of the 1960s was still running strong enough in 1969 to affect Nixon’s domestic policies. The Environmental Protection Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act with its CETA employment program were all enacted under Nixon. If that still fast-flowing tide so influenced a conservative administration, what signal opportunities it would have given a reform president! The confidence that both black and white working-class Americans had in Robert Kennedy would have created the possibility of progress toward racial reconciliation. His appeal to the young might have mitigated some of the under-thirty excesses of the time. And of course the election of Robert Kennedy would have delivered the republic from Watergate, with its attendant subversion of the Constitution and destruction of faith in government. RRK”
― Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., quote from Robert Kennedy and His Times
“For Robert the experience was another step in education. He was learning in particular that patriotic declarations did not make due process of law superfluous and that he owed a debt to his own inner standards.”
― Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., quote from Robert Kennedy and His Times
“The reason everyone thinks all frogs go “ribbit” is that “ribbit” is the distinctive call of the Pacific tree frog (Hyla regilla). This is the frog that lives in Hollywood.”
― John Lloyd, quote from The Book of General Ignorance
“one of the worst things in the world today, the unkindness of woman to woman. You”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Mysterious Mr. Quin
“So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.”
― John Marsden, quote from The Night Is for Hunting
“Something about the way Chinedu said his name, Abidemi, made her think of gently pressing on a sore muscle, the kind of self-inflicted ache that is satisfying.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from The Thing Around Your Neck
“With the money my mother earned from selling cakes, my father cut a deal with Mangochi and bought one pail of maize. My mother took it to the mill, saved half the flour for us, and used the rest for more cakes. We did this every day, taking enough to eat and selling the rest. It was enough to provide our one blob of nsima each night, along with some pumpkin leaves. It was practically nothing, yet knowing it would be there somehow made the hunger less painful.
"As long as we can stay in business," my father said, "we'll make it through. Our profit is that we live.”
― William Kamkwamba, quote from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
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