Top 100 Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
#1. A President must call on many persons
some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#2. Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#3. I am making a collection of the things my opponents have found me to be and, when this election is over, I am going to open a museum and put them on display.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#4. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#5. For the first time in our history it is possible to conquer poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#6. Today - wealthier, more powerful and more able than ever before in our history - our Nation can declare another essential freedom.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#7. You know when you're milking a cow and you have all that foamy white milk in the bucket and you're just about through, when all of a sudden the cow switches her tail through a pile of manure and slaps it into that foamy white milk. That's Bill Fulbright.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#8. Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#9. If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations
Lyndon B. Johnson
#10. If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#11. I'm willin' for any solution - religious, political. I'm not going to keep offerin' to negotiate so much because they turn us down each time. It indicates a weakness on our part.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#13. We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences, that no one can perceive, nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power, but we will not surrender and we will not retreat, for
behind our American pledge lies the determination and resources, I believe, of all of the American nation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#14. Life is never easy. There is work to be done and obligations to be met - obligations to truth, to justice, and to liberty.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#15. Law is the great civilizing machinery. It liberates the desire to build and subdues the desire to destroy.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#16. When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#17. No nation in the world has had greater fortune than mine in sharing a continent with the people and the nation of Canada.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#18. A perpetual conflict with natural desires seems to be the lot of our present state. In youth we require something of the tardiness and frigidity of age; and in age we must labour to recall the fire and impetuosity of youth; in youth we must learn to respect, and in age to enjoy.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#19. We of the United States consider ourselves blessed. We have much to give thanks for. But the gift of providence we cherish most is that we were given as our neighbors on this wonderful continent the people and the nation of Canada.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#20. There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#21. To hunger for use and to go unused is the worst hunger of all.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#22. The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#23. I am persuaded that the people of the world have no grievances, one against the other. The hopes and desires of a man who tills the soil are about the same whether he lives on the banks of the Colorado or on the banks of the Danube.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#24. Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize Oh man ... I could be eating a slow learner.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#25. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#26. We decided that our first job was to help the schools serving the children from the very lowest income groups. Those families constitute the number one burden, the number one burden in this Nation on the school systems.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#27. The best way to begin disarming is to begin-and the United States is ready to conclude firm agreements in these areas and to consider any other reasonable proposal.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#28. In addition to our existing programs, I will recommend a new program for schools and students with a first-year authorization of $1,500 million.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#30. This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#31. If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#32. The classroom - not the trench - is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#33. The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#34. Whoever won't fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#35. We cannot have government for all the people until we first make certain it is government of and by all the people.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#36. In a nation of millions and a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#37. Already a congressman, to a mentor I hope sometime you run across something you think I can do well 24 hours per day.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#38. The best fertilizer for a piece of land is the footprints of its owner.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#39. Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#40. [The United States and Israel] share many common objectives ... chief of which is the building of a better world in which every nation can develop its resources and develop them in freedom and peace.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#41. I hear the headlines on the radio, see them on TV and read them in the paper. When I hear from the men out there, I sometimes don't believe they are talking about the same situation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#42. At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#43. For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own. [ ... ] Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged
character of our people, and on their faith.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#44. You know there is no one in the world I would rather sleep with than Yuki.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#45. The American West is just arriving at the threshold of its greatness and growth. Where the West of yesterday is glamorized in our fiction, the future of the American West now is both fabulous and factual.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#46. Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition ... well, they are still radical ideas.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#47. I know - from personal experience - that abiding values and abundant visions are learned in the homes of our people.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#48. If one little old general in shirt sleeves can take Saigon, think about 200 million Chinese comin' down those trails. No sir, I don't want to fight them.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#49. No national sovereignty rules in outer space. Those who venture there go as envoys of the entire human race. Their quest, therefore, must be for all mankind, and what they find should belong to all mankind.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#50. I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#51. This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#52. Peace does not come just because we wish for it. Peace must be fought for. It must be built stone by stone.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#53. In the years since then, those four freedoms - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear - have stood as a summary of our aspirations for the American Republic and for the world.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#54. America has not always been kind to its artists and scholars. Somehow the scientists always seem to get the penthouse while the arts and humanities get the basement.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#56. Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't walk and chew gum at the same time ... He's a nice fellow, but he spent too much time playing football without a helmet.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#57. Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#58. And Americans have always stood ready to pay the cost in energy and treasure which are needed to make those goals a reality.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#59. Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#61. If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#62. All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#63. Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#64. This nation, this generation, in this hour has man's first chance to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#66. Every citizen, regardless of his race, creed, or color, is entitled to equal justice.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#67. For the individual, education is the path to achievement and fulfillment; for the nation, it is a path to a society that is not only free but civilized; and for the world, it is the path to peace - for it is education that places reason over force.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#68. In our home there was always prayer - aloud, proud and unapologetic.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#70. I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#71. A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he's going to get sick on it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#72. We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#73. Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#74. I want every family in America to have a carpet on the floor and a picture on the wall. After bread, you've got to have a picture on the wall.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#75. I will not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#76. The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance, but agony.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#77. In the Great Society, work shall be an outlet for mans interests and desires. Each individual shall have full opportunity to use his capacities in employment which satisfies personally and contributes generally to the quality of the Nations life.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#78. I'll have those n**gers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#79. The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#80. Victory is no longer a truth. It is only a word to describe who is left alive in the ruins
Lyndon B. Johnson
#81. When a person finds themselves predisposed to complaining about how little they are regarded by others, let them reflect how little they have contributed to the happiness of others.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#82. Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#83. If we fail now, then we will have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith; freedom asks more than it gives; and the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#84. He's [Gerald Ford] a nice guy but he played too much football with his helmet off.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#85. As man draws nearer to the stars, why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor?
Lyndon B. Johnson
#86. What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#87. The thing I would like to do most is to find somehow to bring peace to the world. It has eluded me.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#88. All that Hubert needs over there is a gal to answer the phone and a pencil with an eraser on it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#89. We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#90. The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation-must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#91. If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#92. There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#94. Conservation is ethically sound. It is rooted in our love of the land, our respect for the rights of others, our devotion to the rule of law.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#95. In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war; we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#96. Doing the right thing is not the problem. Knowing what the right thing is, that's the challenge.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#97. We need to remember that the separation of church and state must never mean the separation of religious values from the lives of public servants ... If we who serve free men today are to differ from the tyrants of this age, we must balance the powers in our hands with God in our hearts.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#98. I may not worry as much as Prime Minister Eshkol does about Israel, but I worry as deeply.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#99. You have your own difficulties. We watch, with friendly confidence in your capacity to merge differences in the grand dream of Canadian design.
Lyndon B. Johnson
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