Means of Ascent Quotes

“if one characteristic of Lyndon Johnson was a boundless ambition, another was a willingness, on behalf of that ambition, to make efforts that were also without bounds.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“A handshake, as delivered by Lyndon Johnson, could be as effective as a hug.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“Until the end of his life, whenever the subject of the vast growth of the LBJ Company and associated business enterprises was raised, Lyndon Johnson would emphasize that he owned none of it (“All that is owned by Mrs. Johnson.… I don’t have any interest in government-regulated industries of any kind and never have had”).”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“I never conceived of my biographies as merely telling the lives of famous men but rather as a means of illuminating their times and the great forces that shaped their times—particularly political power, since in a democracy political power has so great a role in shaping the lives of the citizens of that democracy.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson’s political life—from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics—his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“With a note of sadness, Wicker wrote in 1983 that “the reverence, the childlike dependence, the willingness to follow where the President leads, the trust, are long gone—gone, surely, with Watergate, but gone before that.… After Lyndon Johnson, after the ugly war that consumed him, trust in ‘the President’ was tarnished forever.” That tarnishing revolutionized politics and government in the United States. The shredding of the delicate yet crucial fabric of credence and faith between the people of the United States and the man they had placed in the White House occurred during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“Lyndon Johnson knew how to make the most of such enthusiasm and how to play on it and intensify it. He wanted his audience to become involved. He wanted their hands up in the air. And having been a schoolteacher he knew how to get their hands up. He began, in his speeches, to ask questions.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“(Until the end of their lives, these men and women would tell stories about the summer they followed Lyndon Johnson and his Flying Windmill around Texas; as Oliver Knight of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would write about one trip, “That mad dash from Navasota to Conroe in which I dodged stumps at 70 MPH just to keep up with that contraption will ever be green in my memory.”) At the landing site, there would be the brief respite”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“dignity was a luxury in a fight with Lyndon Johnson, a luxury too expensive to afford.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“He (LBJ) played on their fears as he played on their hopes.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“A laconic Texas lawmaker declined to use his considerable influence to intervene in a loud dispute between his colleagues. When asked why not, he said, "They're not voting. If they're not voting, they're not passing any laws. If they're not passing any laws, they're not hurting anybody.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“the ache changed into the sharp, gripping, radiating cramps in the back and side of “kidney colic,” a pain that comes and goes in waves so intense that medical textbooks describe it as “agonizing” and “unbearable”; “few bodily complaints … demand immediate relief so urgently,”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“The trouble with him,” one state Senator said, “is that he insists on talking to a man’s intellect, not his p”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“The record was one of economy in government, of prudence and frugality, of spending the people’s money as carefully as if it had been his own, of having government do only what the people couldn’t do for themselves. That last point was very important,”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent

“Speaking out as he had never before done in Congress, Lyndon Johnson in 1947 opposed most of Truman’s “Fair Deal.”
― Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent