Quotes by Lyndon B. Johnson

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences - deep, corrosive, obstinate differences - radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

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.

[T]he 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.

Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered.

Doing what is right isnt the problem its knowing what is right.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep ones wife happy. First let her think shes having her own way. And second let her have it.

Id rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can.... Have I done enough?

Doing whats right isnt the problem. Its knowing whats right.

There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress and that is continuously incessantly and without interruption. If its really going to work the relationship between the president and the Congress has got to be almost incestuous.

Only two things are necessary to keep ones wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way and the other to let her have it.

Yesterday is not ours to recover but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

While youre saving your face youre losing your ass. Never trust a man whose eyes are too close to his nose. I never trust a man unless Ive got his pecker in my pocket. Better inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

The world has narrowed to a neighbourhood before it has broadened to a brotherhood.

A presidents hardest task is not to do whats right but to know whats right.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldnt let them into the family brokerage business.

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

Im tired. Im tired of feeling rejected by the American people. Im tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war.

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