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Home
Authors
Lyndon B. Johnson
American
President
About the author
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,
American
President
#Will
#Numbers
#Vietnam
#Aggression
Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don't think the press has understood me.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#May
#Television
#Press
#Media
#Error
#Communication
#Confidence
#Rapport
Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Wife
One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Want
#Golf
#President
#Politics
No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Worth
Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#God
John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Country
#Disease
#Danger
#Hate
Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Time
#Dumb
Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Babies
#Kissing
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,
American
President
#Success
#Purpose
#Vietnam
#Aggression
#Conquest
It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#American
#Invention
#Principles
#Constitution
#Genius
When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Poverty
#Name
It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Life
#Thought
#May
#Humanity
We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Time
#Now
#Law
#Country
#Books
#Rights
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,
American
President
#Society
#Opportunity
We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#World
#Brotherhood
We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#People
#Open
#Opportunity
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,
American
President
#Will
#Sense
#Argument
#Conviction
When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Vietnam
When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Presidency
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,
American
President
#Will
#Man
#Attention
#Sleep
Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
#Liberty
#Old
While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Losing
In our home there was always prayer - aloud, proud and unapologetic.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Home
#Prayer
It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don't think anybody has held this job who hasn't felt personally responsible for those being killed.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#People
#Being
#Job
What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#People
#Will
#President
#United
#Politics
#Party
#Suspicion
#Distrust
#Selfishness
A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
#President
I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Society
#Fight
#Vietnam
I believe the destiny of your generation - and your nation - is a rendezvous with excellence.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Destiny
#Nation
#Excellence
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,
American
President
#Open
#Opponents
I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#American
#states
#United
#Order
Freedom is not enough.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Freedom
Every President wants to do right.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
#President
I don't believe I'll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn't go to Harvard.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Successful
#Credit
Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Education
#Opportunity
I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#People
#Will
#Building
#World
#Man
#Government
#Society
Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Man
#Presidency
Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Life
#Love
#Freedom
#Israel
#Society
#Faith
#America
#Spiritual
Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Time
#Peace
#Journey
Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Life
#World
#History
#Act
#Decision
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,
American
President
#Family
#Business
#Boys
The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Character
#Man
#Fact
The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Freedom
#Ignorance
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Failure
#Bombs
The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#President
The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#God
#People
#Public
#Strength
#Men
#America
#Destiny
#Unity
#states
#United
#Reassurance
Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Poverty
#Learning
Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Nothing
#Being
#President
Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Speech
#Economics
Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
It is important that the United States remain a two-party system. I'm a fellow who likes small parties and the Republican Party can't be too small to suit me.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#states
#United
#Republican
#Party
If you let a bully come in your front yard, he'll be on your porch the next day and the day after that he'll rape your wife in your own bed.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Wife
#Day
#Bed
Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
#Man
#Night
I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#God
#Will
#Help
I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#People
#Feeling
#War
#American
#Night
#Waking
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Water
If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Love
#People
#Will
#American
Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Love
#Wife
#Man
#Church
A man without a vote is man without protection.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Man
#Protection
#Vote
I feel like I just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Right
If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Miracles
#World
#Technology
#Future
#Sorrow
#Gratitude
#Generations
I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Life
I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Want
#Policy
#Women
If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Thinking
#May
#Men
I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Day
#Politics
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,
American
President
#Man
#Open
I report to you that our country is challenged at home and abroad: that it is our will that is being tried and not our strength; our sense of purpose and not our ability to achieve a better America.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Will
#Strength
#Home
#Ability
#Being
#Country
#Purpose
#Sense
#America
I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You've got to just stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Being
#Nixon
#Presidency
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,
American
President
#Wife
#First
I'm the only president you've got.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#President
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Tomorrow
#Yesterday
You've got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you've got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Work
#Vote
#Debate
You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Will
#Light
#Cause
#Benefits
#Legislation
#Wrongs
You aren't learning anything when you're talking.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Talking
#Learning
Whoever won't fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#President
#Fight
The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Strength
#Being
#State
#Men
#Faith
#Nation
#Church
#Conscience
#Separation
This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Now
#War
#Poverty
We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Man
#Men
#Luxury
#Necessity
#Society
#Age
#Education
We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Home
#American
#Boys
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,
American
President
#Will
#Men
#Education
#Opportunity
#Justice
#Race
#Fact
#Blind
To conclude that women are unfitted to the task of our historic society seems to me the equivalent of closing male eyes to female facts.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Society
#Eyes
#Women
#Facts
The noblest search is the search for excellence.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Excellence
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,
American
President
#Mother
#Parents
#Father
The Russians feared Ike. They didn't fear me.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Fear
They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#American
#Job
#Boys
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,
American
President
#Work
#President
#Congress
There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Trouble
#Responsibility
There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Problems
There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Office
The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Man
#Men
#Vote
#Injustice
This is not Johnson's war. This is America's war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Will
#War
#America
#Tomorrow
The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
American
President
#Weapons
#Nation
#Sky
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,
American
President
#Country
#Moon
#Exploration
#Countries