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I'm sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.

J. William Fulbright

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J. William Fulbright
Age: 89 †
Born: 1905
Born: April 9
Died: 1995
Died: February 9
Banker
Farmer
Former United States Senator
Instructor
Lawyer
Lecturer
Politician
President
Sumner
Missouri
James William Fulbright
William Fulbright
Ever
Japan
Way
Ignorant
Never
Completely
Bangkok
Would
Feeling
Acted
Like
Sure
Johnson
People
President
Pursued
War
Feelings
Vietnam

More quotes by J. William Fulbright

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Naturepitiless in a pitiless universeis certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting this earth. Hence, our destiny, with the aid of God, remains in our own hands.
J. William Fulbright
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I do not think it is selling America short when we ask a great deal of her on the contrary, it is those who ask nothing, those who see no fault, who are really selling America short!
J. William Fulbright
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The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not what it can do, but what it can prevent.
J. William Fulbright
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In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.
J. William Fulbright
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Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence.
J. William Fulbright
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Israel's shooting down of a civilian airplane and then the killing of 107 innocent peopel aboard, and their raid into neutral Lebanon are very dangerous developments. There's only one way I can see to stop it...is for the United States to take a very strong stand that this has to be settled...politically settled.
J. William Fulbright
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The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.
J. William Fulbright
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We are trying to remake Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot be accomplished by force and which probably cannot be accomplished by any means available to outsiders.
J. William Fulbright
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When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.
J. William Fulbright
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A nation's budget is full of moral implications it tells what a society cares about and what it does not care about it tells what its values are.
J. William Fulbright
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Education is a slow-moving but powerful force. It may not be fast enough or strong enough to save us from catastrophe, but it is the strongest force available for that purpose and in its proper place, therefore, is not at the periphery, but at the center of international relations.
J. William Fulbright
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One simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend.
J. William Fulbright
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There has been a tendency through the years for reason and moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as our problems seem clear and finite and manageable.
J. William Fulbright
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The Program further aims to make the benefits of American culture and technology available to the world and to enrich American life by exposing it to the science and art of many societies.
J. William Fulbright
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When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. It has no apparatus to deal with the boor, the liar, the lout, and the antidemocrat in general.
J. William Fulbright
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The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.
J. William Fulbright
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It's unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people.
J. William Fulbright
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Insofar as it represents a genuine reconciliation of differences, a consensus is a fine thing insofar as it represents a concealment of differences, it is a miscarriage of democratic procedure.
J. William Fulbright
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We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
J. William Fulbright
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The Soviet Union has indeed been our greatest menace - not so much because of what it has done, but because of the excuses it has provided us for our own failures.
J. William Fulbright