Top 405 Quotes & Sayings by Lyndon B. Johnson - Page 6

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.

We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam-and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.

. . . the time has also come to identify and preserve free-flowing stretches of our great rivers before growth and development make the beauty of the unspoiled waterway a memory.

Let no one ever think for a moment that national debate means national division.

For the first time in our history it is possible to conquer poverty.

There can no longer be anyone too poor to vote.

It will help at every state along the road to learning. For the pre-school years we will help needy children become aware of the excitement of learning.

For the individual, education is the path to achievement and fulfillment; for the nation, it is a path to a society that is not only free but civilized; and for the world, it is the path to peace - for it is education that places reason over force.

We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.

Success only feeds the appetite of aggression.

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

We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences, that no one can perceive, nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power, but we will not surrender and we will not retreat, for behind our American pledge lies the determination and resources, I believe, of all of the American nation.

The great society is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goods than with the quantity of their goods.

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.

And Americans have always stood ready to pay the cost in energy and treasure which are needed to make those goals a reality.

An unfolding technology has increased our economic strength and added to the convenience of our lives. But that same technology-we know now-carries danger with it. From the great smoke stacks of industry and from the exhausts of motors and machines, 130 million tons of soot, carbon and grime settle over the people and shroud the Nation's cities each year. From towns, factories, and stockyards, wastes pollute our rivers and streams, endangering the waters we drink and use.

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.

So here is the Great Society. It's the time - and it's going to be soon - when nobody in this country is poor.

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

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.

A clear stream, a long horizon, a forest wilderness and open sky - these are man's most ancient possessions. In a modern society, they are his most priceless.

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.

I won't have you electioneering on my doorstep. Every time you get in trouble in Parliament you run over here with your shirttail hanging out.

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.

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

Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation.

History may well record that we served liberty and saved freedom when we undertook a crash program in the field of education . . .. I hope this bill is only the forerunner of better things to come.

This is not a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity.

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.

Not merely a nation but a nation of nations.

'Human history, ' H.G. Wells once wrote, 'becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' You and I cannot be indifferent to the outcome of that race. We care deeply about the winner. Because we do care so deeply about the winner, that is why we are all in the East Room of the White House today.

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.

A compassionate government keeps faith with the trust of the people and cherishes the future of their children. Through compassion for the plight of one individual, government fulfills its purpose as the servant of all the people.

Control of space means control of the world.

How incredible it is that in this fragile existence we should hate and destroy one another. There are possibilities enough for all who will abandon mastery over others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough for all to seek their happiness in their own way.

True poverty does not come from God.

In 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the Second President of the Republic of Texas and the Father of Texas education, declared: 'The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy. It is the only dictator that free man acknowledges. It is the only security that free man desires.'

Conservation is ethically sound. It is rooted in our love of the land, our respect for the rights of others, our devotion to the rule of law.

The classroom - not the trench - is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

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.

Nothing so challenges the American spirit as tackling the biggest job on earth....Americans are stimulated by the big job; the Panama Canal, Boulder Dam, Grand Coulee, Lower Colorado River developments, the tallest building in the world, the mightiest battleship.

If one little old general in shirt sleeves can take Saigon, think about 200 million Chinese comin' down those trails. No sir, I don't want to fight them.

Curtis Le May wants to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong. You know how he likes to go around bombing.

I hear the headlines on the radio, see them on TV and read them in the paper. When I hear from the men out there, I sometimes don't believe they are talking about the same situation.

Reporters are like puppets. They simply respond to the pull of the most powerful strings.

We still seek no wider war.

We can and should have an abundance of trails for walking, cycling, and horseback riding, in and close to our cities. In the backcountry we need to copy the great Appalachian Trail in all parts of America.

Effective law enforcement and social justice must be pursued together, as the foundation of our efforts against crime.

No nation in the world has had greater fortune than mine in sharing a continent with the people and the nation of Canada.

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life. ... Most, if not all of you, have very deep ties with the land and with the people of Israel, as I do; for my Christian faith sprang from yours. The Bible stories are woven into my childhood memories as the gallant struggle of modem Jews to be free of persecution is also woven into our souls.

We of the United States of America consider ourselves blessed. We have much to give thanks for. But the gift of providence that we really cherish is that we were given as our neighbors on this great, wonderful continent, the people and the nation of Canada.

Today our problem is not making miracles, but managing them.

For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.

Every citizen will be able, in his productive years when he is earning, to insure himself against the ravages of illness in his old age.

[The United States and Israel] share many common objectives ... chief of which is the building of a better world in which every nation can develop its resources and develop them in freedom and peace.

Not now, or not there, or too much, or not at all.

The United States stands by its friends. Israel is one of its friends Peace can be based only on agreement between the parties and agreement can be achieved only through negotiations between them. The United States will not impose the terms of peace. The United States is prepared to supply military equipment necessary to support the efforts of friendly governments, like Israel's, to defend the safety of their people.

New laboratories and centers will help our schools lift their standards of excellence and explore new methods of teaching. These centers will provide special training for those who need and deserve special treatment.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

I pray we are still a young and courageous nation, that we have not grown so old and so fat and so prosperous that all we can think about is to sit back with our arms around our money bags. If we choose to do that I have no doubt that the smoldering fires will burst into flame and consume us - dollars and all.