Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.
Interpretation
Life is characterized by a constant longing for happiness that is often challenged by youth's inexperience and age's limitations.
This quote by Lyndon B. Johnson reflects on the paradox of human existence, where happiness seems perpetually out of reach. In youth, our aspirations are often hindered by our lack of experience and foresight, while in old age, although we possess the wisdom to achieve our goals, we may find ourselves lacking the energy or time to realize them fully. It underscores the idea that at every stage of life, obstacles prevent us from attaining true happiness, pointing to the intricate relationship between age, experience, and fulfillment.
In practice
During a graduation speech to remind students that life will continue to present challenges despite educational achievements.
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.
God is pleased continually to vary His mode of dealing with us, in order that we may not be tempted to trust in donors, or in circumstances, but in Him alone, and to keep our eye fixed upon Him.
In the United States, man does not feel that he has been torn from the center of creation and suspended between hostile forces. He has built his own world, and it is built in his own image: it is his mirror. But now he cannot recognize himself in his inhuman objects, nor in his fellows.
Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.
When fear displaces reason, the result is often irrational hatred and division.
My Brain and My Heart are my Temples. My true Religion is Kindness.
If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.
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