Congress has a deep, vested interest in its own inefficiency. - Robert A. Caro

the Founders’ armor had resisted every attempt by others to force them open; the Senate had been designed as the “firm” body; it had become too firm — too firm to allow the reforms the Republic needed. Never had the dam been more firm than during the last decade, the decade since the conservative coalition had learned its strength. During that decade, despite the mandate of three presidential elections, it had stood across and blocked the rising demand for social justice, had stood so solidly that it seemed too strong ever to be breached. In January, 1949, when Lyndon Johnson arrived in it, it was still standing.

silence is the weapon, silence and people’s need to fill it

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” that they summoned up, and, in some ways, summed up, the best of the American spirit, igniting hopes so that, almost on the instant it seemed, they summoned up a new era for Americans, an era of ideals, of brightness, of hope.