Quotes from Robert Kennedy and His Times

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


About the author

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Born place: in Columbus, Ohio, The United States
Born date October 15, 1917
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hyponotic definitions of dictations.”
― Herbert Marcuse, quote from One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society


“This is a sickness rooted and inherent in the nature of a tyranny: that he that holds it does not trust his friends.”
― Aeschylus, quote from Prometheus Bound


“And as they had been riding for as many as twenty-four hours and were nervous about missing their stop, some got off prematurely, and, it is said, that is how Newark gained a good portion of its black population, those arriving in Newark by accident and deciding to stay.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, quote from The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration


“كل عمل يتميز بنواياه وكل نية تتميز بعملها . الفارق بين القبول والاغتصاب قد يكون كأسا واحدة أو كلمة واحدة.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from Dermaphoria


“Because, really, what was worse than lying wide-awake in the dark, watching your life drip away, one irreplaceable minute after another?”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher


Interesting books

Storm Siren
(7.6K)
Storm Siren
by Mary Weber
Broken
(4.9K)
Broken
by J.L. Drake
There but for the
(6.2K)
There but for the
by Ali Smith
Freaks I've Met
(1.5K)
Freaks I've Met
by Donald Jans
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
(31.4K)
Love Does: Discover...
by Bob Goff
Heretics
(2.9K)
Heretics
by G.K. Chesterton

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.