Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

238 Sourced Quotes

Europe has been at peace since 1945. But it is a restless peace thats shadowed by the threat of violence. Europe is partitioned. An unnatural line runs through the heart of a very great and a very proud nation [Germany]. History warns us that until this harsh division has been resolved, peace in Europe will never be secure. We must turn to one of the great unfinished tasks of our generationand that unfinished task is making Europe whole again.

Lyndon B. Johnson
The debris of civilization litters the landscapes and spoils the beaches. Conservation's concerns now is not only for man's enjoyment-but for man's survival.

Lyndon B. Johnson
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
Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all the time. But Republicans haven't given up trying.

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

Lyndon B. Johnson
But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Air pollution is a threat to health, especially of older persons. It contributes significantly to the rising rates of chronic respiratory ailments. It stains our cities and towns with ugliness, soiling and corroding whatever it touches. Its damage extends to our forests and farmlands as well. The economic toll for our neglect amounts to billions of dollars each year.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Law is the great civilizing machinery. It liberates the desire to build and subdues the desire to destroy.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private.

Lyndon B. Johnson
For the primary and secondary school years, we will aid public schools serving low-income families and assist students in both public and private schools.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Second, this law has become a special symbol of our Nation's most important purpose: to fulfill the individual - his freedom, his happiness, his promise.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million - more than one-quarter of all America - have not even finished high school.

Lyndon B. Johnson
An unspoiled river is a very rare thing in this Nation today. Their flow and vitality have been harnessed by dams and too often they have been turned into open sewers by communities and by industries. It makes us all very fearful that all rivers will go this way unless somebody acts now to try to balance our river development.

Lyndon B. Johnson
I don't think that I need to tell you how important to the outcome of that race is the education legislation that is now before the Congress. I hope that it is important enough that most of you have studied it in detail. I hope that you understand that it represents the very best thinking that the leading educators of this country can produce.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Today - wealthier, more powerful and more able than ever before in our history - our Nation can declare another essential freedom.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Americans have always built for the future. That is why we established land grant colleges and passed the Homestead Act to open our Western lands more than 100 years ago.

Lyndon B. Johnson
I believe, with abiding conviction, that this people-nurtured by their deep faith, tutored by their hard lessons, moved by their high aspirations-have the will to meet the trials that these times impose.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Of all the problems of conservation, none is more urgent that the polluted air which endangers the American people. We have been fortunate so far. But we have seen that when winds fail to blow, the concentrations of poisonous clouds over our cities can become perilous.

Lyndon B. Johnson
But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

Lyndon B. Johnson
A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal.

Lyndon B. Johnson
We are now embarked on another venture to put the American dream to work in meeting the new demands of a new day. Once again we must start where men would improve their society have always known they must begin - with an educational system restudied, reinforced, and revitalized.

Lyndon B. Johnson
There is no excuse-and we should call a spade a spade-for chemical companies and oil refineries using our major rivers as pipelines for toxic waste. There is no excuse for communities to use other people's rivers as a dump for their raw sewage.

Lyndon B. Johnson
We come to reason, not to dominate. We do not seek to have our way, but to find a common way.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Education is the key to opportunity in our society, and the equality of educational opportunity must be the birthright of every citizen.

Lyndon B. Johnson
We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.

Lyndon B. Johnson
My most fervent prayer is to be a President who can make it possible for every boy in this land to grow to manhood by loving his country--instead of dying for it.

Lyndon B. Johnson
To hunger for use and to go unused is the worst hunger of all.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Where legitimate opportunities are closed, illegitimate opportunities are seized. Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake - but for the nation's sake.

Lyndon B. Johnson
For it was only after I could become President of this country that I could really see in all its hopeful and troubling implications just how much the hopes of our citizens and the security of our Nation and the real strength of our democracy depended upon the learning and the understanding of our people.

Lyndon B. Johnson