I've Been To The White House A

Years Of Concentration Solely On Work And Individual Success Meant That In His Retirement [lyndon Johnson] Could Find No Solace In Family, In Recreation, In Sports Or In Hobbies. It Was Almost As If The Hole In His Heart Was So Large That Even The Love Of A Family, Without Work, Could Not Fill It.

Washington Was A Typical American. Napoleon Was A Typical Frenchman, But Lincoln Was A Humanitarian As Broad As The World. He Was Bigger Than His Country - Bigger Than All The Presidents Together. We Are Still Too Near To His Greatness,' (leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) Concluded, 'but After A Few Centuries More Our Posterity Will Find Him Considerably Bigger Than We Do. His Genius Is Still Too Strong And Powerful For The Common Understanding, Just As The Sun Is Too Hot When Its Light Beams Directly On Us.' (748)

Politicians Generally Form Alliances And Not Friendships. Individuals And Institutions Achieve Their Ends Through Continual Barter. But Deals Are Not Bonds. Indeed, Intense Emotional Involvement With Anything - With Issues, Ideology, A Woman, Even A Family - Can Be A Handicap, Not Only Consuming Valuable Time, But More Importantly, Reducing Flexibility And The Capacity For Detached Calculation Needed To Take Maximum Advantage Of Continually Changing Circumstances.

What The American Dream Means To Me Is The Fact That - What Founded This Country - When I Think About Those Posters That Were Put Up In Europe, Which Said, "come To America And You'll Have Golden Sidewalks. The Land Will Be Yours." There Was Something So Inspirational About The Fact That These Immigrants From All Over The World Felt That Here Was A Place Of Freedom, A Place Of Opportunity.

The White House Is Such An Extraordinary, Simple, Beautiful Place. It's An Extraordinary Piece Of Our History, Because It Is The One Thing That Binds Our Country Together. We Don't Have A King Obviously, But We Have This President, And The Fact That Almost All Of Them Have Lived In The Same Place, And So Much History Took Place In Those Rooms. You Can't Help But Feel Awe-inspired By Being There.