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.
Interpretation
We often lament life's brevity while delaying important actions and succumbing to distractions.
This quote by Lyndon B. Johnson reflects on the human tendency to acknowledge the shortness of life yet often fail to act upon this realization. Instead of seizing opportunities, we become preoccupied with indulgences and delay pursuits that truly matter, allowing our passions to take precedence over meaningful action. The irony lies in our acknowledgement of life's fleeting nature juxtaposed with our inertia to harness that understanding into decisive action.
In practice
During a motivational speech about seizing opportunities.
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.
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.
I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.
We are finite and God will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.
The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.
What the government wants is something they never had before. They want total awareness. The question is, is that something we should be allowing?
The essence of the question is the opening up, and keeping open, of possibilities.
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