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The Passage of Power

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Robert A. Caro

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“In its quest to discover how the patterns of reality are organised, the story of modern science hints at a picture of a set of Chinese puzzle boxes, each one more intricately structured and wondrous than the last. Every time the final box appears to have been reached, a key has been found which has opened up another, revealing a new universe even more breathtakingly improbable in its conception. We are now forced to suspect that, for human reason, there is no last box, that in some deeply mysterious, virtually unfathomable, self-reflective way, every time we open a still smaller box, we are actually being brought closer to the box with which we started, the box which contains our own conscious experience of the world. This is why no theory of knowledge, no epistemology, can ever escape being consumed by its own self-generated paradoxes. And this is why we must consider the universe to be irredeemably mystical.”

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Book:Earthdream: The Marriage of Reason and Intuition
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“It is not clear who will bring to the Whitehouse those useful commodities of vivid language, a sense of history and most important - a sense of humour, but Johnson himself will provide many other attributes. He is effective precisely because he is so determined, industrious, personal and even humourless, particularly in dealing with Congress. (…) Kennedy had a detached and even donnish willingness to grant a merit in the other fellow’s argument. Johnson is not so inclined to retreat and grants nothing in an argument, not even equal time. Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. This may not be the most attractive quality of the new administration but it works. The lovers of style are not too happy with the new administration, but the lovers of substance are not complaining.”

PoliticsKennedyLbjJack KennedyLyndon B JohnsonStyle Substance
Book:The Passage of Power
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“The shittrain began on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas - when some twisted little geek blew the President's off... and then a year later, LBJ was re-elected as the "Peace Candidate." Johnson did a lot of rotten things in those five bloody years, but when the history books are written he will emerge in his proper role as the man who caused an entire generation of Americans to lose all respect for the Presidency, the White House, the Army, and in fact the who structure of "government.”

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Book:Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
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“Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide. [Quoting President Lyndon B. Johnson’s remarks at the signing ceremony of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 on Liberty Island in New York.]”

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Book:One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965
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“From 1966 to 1976 ... The primary cause in [the] decline in FBI counterespionage and counterintelligence cases was the ceaseless demand by Presidents Johnson and Nixon to focus on the political warfare against the American left.... - "Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens, 1947-2001, Defense Personnel Security Research Center, July 2002”

GovernmentCivil RightsFbiEspionageLbjNixon
Book:Enemies: A History of the FBI
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“Lecz nawet gdyby się tego szczerze pragnęło — jak można z postanowienia prostego zacząć istnieć? jak można przejść samowładnie z niebytu w byt? To jest prerogatywa boska, nie ludzka: bóstwa powołują się do istnienia; ludzie są stwarzani. Zadanie nieporównanie łatwiejsze: uwierzyć we własne istnienie. Ale jak tu nakazać sobie wiarę? Tak samo jak wiara w istnienie Boga, wiara w istnienie człowieka jest albo spontaniczną, albo nie ma jej wcale. Czy znajdzie się kto taki, co wysłuchał teologicznych argumentów i — tak, przekonaliście mnie, chcę wierzyć, pstryk, et voilà — uwierzył? Wszak to absurd!”

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Author:Jacek Dukaj
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