He’ll pass then, whereas Kennedy could never have passed them

One Senator did not share those feelings [that the South could block civil rights]. “Smarter than they are” though Richard Russell may have been – smarter than his opponents in the Senate – it was not other senators who were Russell’s real opponents now, but the new President, and Russell felt that would change everything. The Kennedy bills would be passed now, Russell told a friend. “He’ll pass then, whereas Kennedy could never have passed them.” (465)

R. Caro, The years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4: the passage of power (2012), 465

Senatorial power had been a coefficient of Presidential weakness

Senatorial power had been a coefficient of Presidential weakness, and for thirty years, Presidents had either like Grant, or indecisive, or simply cowed by the mighty Senate. But with the crack of the assassin’s gunshot that struck down McKinley, and, to the rage of Senator Mark Hanna, put “that dammed cowboy” Theodore Roosevelt in the White House, the era of weak Presidents was over.

R. Caro, The years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 3: master of the senate (2002), 37

The people should have as little to do as may be about the government

Each state, the Framers decided, would be represented by only two senators; the first Senate of the United state consisted of just twenty-six men. Another was the most by which senators would be elected. When one of the Framers, James Wilson of Pennsylvanie, suggested that they be elected by the people, not a single member of the Convention rose to support him. “The people should have as little to do as may be about the government,” Roger Sherman declared. “They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.” 

R. Caro, The years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 3: master of the senate (2002), 9

The utter inability to comprehend the questions of morality or ethics raised by his actions

When they [Johnson’s Lawyers] gave clients advice, the clients usually followed it. Lyndon did not follow it. During the next few days in that September 1948 – those days of crisis – he was to display vividly many of the most striking qualities of his nature. One was the fierceness and determination with which he grabbed for political advantage, grabbed it and, one he had it in his grasp, held onto it. … Another was the utter inability to comprehend the questions of morality or ethics raised by his actions, an utter inability to feel that there was even a possibility that he had violated accepted standards of conduct and might be punished for that violation. But, during this conference and during the following days, Lyndon Johnson was also to display many of the qualities that made him a leader of men. [These were responsibility, decisiveness and force of personality] 

R. Caro, The years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 2: means of ascent (1990), 357

When the election is over, you have to sit on the ballot boxes

Lyndon, apparently you Texans haven’t learned one of the first things we learned up in New York State, and that is when the election is over, you have to sit on the ballot boxes.

FDR, cited in R. Caro, the years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 1: the path to power (1982), 742

His power base wasn’t his congressional district, it was Herman Brown’s bank account

The new power he possessed did not derive from Roosevelt’s friendship, or from Rayburn’s. It did not derive from seniority in the House, not even – despite the relationship that power in a democracy bears to the votes of the electorate – to his seat in it. His power was simply the power of money. To a considerable extent, the money was Herman Brown’s…. His power base wasn’t his congressional district, it was Herman Brown’s bank account

R. Caro, the years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 1: the path to power (1982), 659

And all over the Hill Country people began to name their kids for Lyndon Johnson

One evening in November, 1939, the Smiths were returning from Johnson City, where they had been attending a declamation contest, and as they neared their farmhouse, something was different.

 “Oh my God,” her mother said, “The house is on fire!”
But as they got closer, they saw the light wasn’t fire. 

“No, Mama,” Evelyn said, “The lights are on.”
They were on all over the Hill Country. “And all over the Hill Country,” Stella Gliddon says, “people began to name their kids for Lyndon Johnson.”

R. Caro, The years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 1: the path to power (1982), 528

This whole chapter on electrification and the impact it has on poor, rural communities, is outstanding. And these final lines are a superb end.

In 1974, people using subways and railroads in and around New York were still riding on tracks laid between 1904 and 1933

During the following decade —1955-1965 — federal and state governments spent on new highways in the metropolitan area — the new highways recommended in the Joint Program — about $1,200,000,000. They spent not a cent on mass transportation. ... During this decade [following], 439 miles of new highways were built - and not one mile of new railroad or subway. In 1974, people using subways and railroads in and around New York were still riding on tracks laid between 1904 and 1933, the last year before Robert Moses came to power in the city. Not a single mile had been built since.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 930

There were suddenly, with the exception of a tiny fort converted into an aquarium, no buildings at all

In the upper part of Manhattan the masses of concrete were mostly sixty feet high, or seventy; in the centre of the island, they were a hundred and fifty or two hundred. But as the island narrowed towards its southern tip, they were four hundred feet high, five hundred, cramming closer and closer together, bulking up higher and higher as they loomed southward pressing inexorably toward the island's tip - until at the very tip, at the very end of the most crowded island in the world, at the very spot in the entire world in which buildings should have been crowded most closely together, there were suddenly, with the exception of a tiny fort converted into an aquarium, no buildings at all. At a point at which a single square foot of land was worth thousands of dollars, at which the value of an acre was computed not in millions of dollars, but in the tens of millions, there sat 967,032 square metres of land - 22.2 acres - vacant except for grass and trees, pathways between them, benches, and a broad, breezy waterfront promenade.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 647-8

You bring in a beautiful picture ... and you can see his eyes light up

It never ceases to amaze me how you can talk and talk and talk to some guy about something you've got in mind, and he isn't very impressed, and then you bring in a beautiful picture of it or, better yet, a scale model with the bridge all in white and the water nice and blue, see, and you can see his eyes light up. 

Jack Madigan, cited in R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 623

But all the highways and parks and bridges he had built were little more than nothing next to the highways and parks and bridges that Robert Moses wanted to build

Robert Moses had built public works on a scale unmatched by any other individual in the history of America. But all the highways and parks and bridges he had built were little more than nothing next to the highways and parks and bridges that Robert Moses wanted to build. ... After a decade and a half of building public works, the public works he has not yet built loomed before him larger than ever. 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 619

Planners in general, he said, are "socialists," "revolutionaries" who "do not reach the masses directly but through familiar subsurface activity"

Moses applied these labels generously, branding them not only onto labor leaders ("radical, left-wing") and New Deal Brain Trusters (Rexford Tugwell he assailed as a "Planning Red") and urban planners who dared to offer suggestions for the future of New York City ("regarded in Russia as our greatest builder," was how he characterised Frank Lloyd Wright; he called Lewis Mumford "an outspoken revolutionary"; Walter Gropius, he said, was seeking to change the American system by advocating "a philosophy which doesn't belong here"; planners in general, he said, are "socialists," "revolutionaries" who "do not reach the masses directly but through familiar subsurface activity ....) but onto youthful city officials who dared to stand up to him and who had, his bloodhounds discovered once allowed enthusiasm and naïveté to lead them into membership in some organization that they later learned was a Communist front.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 471

230,000 dead rats were counted in a single week at the zoo site alone

In Central Park, Moses' men restored Olmstead's long-defaced buildings, replanted the Shakespeare garden, placing next to every flower a quotation from the Bard in which it was mentioned, and exterminated herds of rats; 230,000 dead ones were counted in a single week at the zoo site alone. 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 374

Here we were on an absolutely deserted sand bar - there was no was even to get there but by boat - ... talking about bathhouses like palaces and parking lots that held ten thousand cars

One of the famous architects standing around Moses said, "Are you crazy?" The others knew what they architect meant. As one was later to put is: "It was the scale of the thing - nothing on a scale like this had ever been done in public recreation in America. Here we were on an absolutely deserted sand bar - there was no was even to get there but by boat - and here was this guy drawing X's on the back of an envelope and talking about bathhouses like palaces and parking lots that held ten thousand cars. Why, I don't think there was a parking lot of ten thousand cards anywhere in America. And landscaping? Landscaping on a sand bar? We weren't sure anything would grow on a sand bar. We thought he was nuts." 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 223

But free and open debate had not made his dreams come true.

Once, no reformer, no idealist, had believed more sincerely than he in free and open discussion. No reformer, no idealist, had argued more vigorously that legislative bills should be fully debated, and that the debates should be published so that the citizenry could be informed on the issues. 

But free and open debate had not made his dreams come true. Instead, politicians had crushed them. And now he was going to make sure that, with the exception of Al Smith and Belle Moskowitz, no one — not citizenry, not press, not Legislature — was going to know what was in the bills dealing with parks that the Legislature was going to pass. The best bill drafted in Albany set to work.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 173

Even personality must be reduced to a number

It was the proposal of a fanatic. John Calvin specifying permissible arrangements for women's hair in sixteenth-century Geneva was not more thorough than was Bob Moses enumerating the "functions" and "responsibilities" of New York's civil servants. No aspect of conduct on the job was too small to be graded. Even personality must be reduced to a number.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974),  75