Quotes By Lyndon B. Johnson

You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy.

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!

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.

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.

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.

I believe the destiny of your generation - and your nation - is a rendezvous with excellence.

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.

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.

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.

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.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.

The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn't fear me.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

I'm the only president you've got.

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.

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.

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.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

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.

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.

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.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.