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.
LYNDON B. JOHNSONI’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
More Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
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If we must disagree, let’s disagree without being disagreeable.
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I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle.
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Ambition is an uncomfortable companion many times. He creates a discontent with present surroundings and achievements; he is never satisfied but always pressing forward to better things in the future. Restless, energetic, purposeful, it is ambition that makes of the creature a real man.
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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 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.
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When a person finds themselves predisposed to complaining about how little they are regarded by others, let them reflect how little they have contributed to the happiness of others.
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Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, ‘His color is not mine,’ or ‘His beliefs are strange and different,’ in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this nation.
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When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.
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There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.
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In a nation of millions and a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change.
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Jerry Ford is so dumb he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. He’s a nice fellow, but he spent too much time playing football without a helmet.
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Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.
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If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’
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I am going to build the kind of nation that President Roosevelt hoped for, President Truman worked for, and President Kennedy died for.
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The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources–because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.
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I want real loyalty. I want someone who will kiss my ass in Macy’s window, and say it smells like roses.
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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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If you have a mother-in-law with only one eye and she has it in the center of her forehead, don’t keep her in the living room.
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There is no issue of States’ rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.
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Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present.
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I am proud to be a member of a party that opens its doors to all men–and closes its hearts to none.
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If you’re I politics and you can’t tell when you walk into a room who’s for you and who’s against you, then you’re in the wrong line of work.
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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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One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin.
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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.
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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