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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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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
Years
Clear
Manageable
Things
Seems
Prevail
Problem
Moderation
Reason
Finite
Wells
Tendency
Well
Tendencies
Going
Seem
Long
Problems
Tolerably

More quotes by J. William Fulbright

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The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.
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The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.
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Education is the best means-probably the only means-by which nations can cultivate a degree of objectivity about each other's behavior and intentions. It is the means by which Russians and Americans can come to understand each others' aspirations for peace and how the satisfactions of everyday life may be achieved.
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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I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.
J. William Fulbright
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Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations
J. William Fulbright
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We must dare to think unthinkable thoughts.
J. William Fulbright
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There is an inevitable divergence between the world as it is and the world as men perceive it.
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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.
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Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work.
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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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It is a curiosity of human nature that lack of self-assurance seems to breed an exaggerated sense of power and mission.
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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We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
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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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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The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.
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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The American public has become so conditioned by crises, by warnings, by words, that there are few, other than the young, who protest against what is happening.
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