A good president does with executive power what Pablo Picasso did with paint. He takes bills into new and slightly discomfiting territory. He puts extra eyes on policies. He moves the mouth of the Supreme Court from where it should be to where it must be.
LYNDON B. JOHNSONEducation will not cure all the problems of society, but without it no cure for any problem is possible.
More Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
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Republicans simply don’t know how to manage the economy.
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Our objective in South Vietnam has never been the annihilation of the enemy. It has been to bring about a recognition in Hanoi that its objective – taking over the South by force – could not be achieved.
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Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.
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If you let a bully come in and chase you out of your front yard, he’ll be on your porch and the next day he’ll rape your wife in your own bed.
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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.
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Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.
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John ain’t been worth a damn since he started wearing $300 suits.
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A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither because of its shortsightedness. The hard lessons of history are clear, written on the deserted sands and ruins of once proud civilizations.
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The Russians feared Ike. They didn’t fear me.
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Life is never easy. There is work to be done and obligations to be met – obligations to truth, to justice, and to liberty.
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Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present.
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The job, of course, will never be finished. For a nation, as for an individual, education is a perpetually unfinished journey, a continuing process of discovery.
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Of course, I may go into a strange bedroom every now and then that I don’t want you to write about, but otherwise you can write everything.
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Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition. Well, they are still radical ideas.
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To sustain an environment suitable for man, we must fight on a thousand battlegrounds. Despite all of our wealth and knowledge, we cannot create a redwood forest, a wild river, or a gleaming seashore.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON