Quotes from Lyndon B. Johnson

I'm going to have to bring up the nigger bill again. [Said to a southern U.S. Senator upon the occasion of the Republicans re-introducing the Civil Right Act of 1957, according to LBJ's Special Counsel Harry McPherson.]

People do not come out to vote for a United States Senator. They come out to vote for the Sheriff or the County Commissioner.

He wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

Power is where power goes.

Already a congressman, to a mentor I hope sometime you run across something you think I can do well 24 hours per day.

Is our world gone? We say Farewell. Is a new world coming? We welcome it, and we will bend it to the hopes of man.

If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.

Two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she is having her way. And second, let her have it.

How incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should hate and destroy one another.

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.

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

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.

Heck by the time a man scratches his behind, clears his throat, and tells me how smart he is, we've already wasted fifteen minutes.

He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him satisfaction.

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

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.

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

Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.

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.

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

I'm willin' for any solution - religious, political. I'm not going to keep offerin' to negotiate so much because they turn us down each time. It indicates a weakness on our part.