President Lyndon Johnson Quotes

Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!"
In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:
"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!"
That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.
So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.
DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

(President) Lyndon Johnson still snapped between exultation and insecurity. ~ Rick Perlstein

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. "Well, Lyndon," Mister Sam answered, "you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once." It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam. ~ David Halberstam

President Lyndon Johnson was very, very unpredictable. We never knew for sure what he is going to do next, and he preferred to have it that way; if he could do something as a complete surprise, that was his preference. ~ Clint Hill

****your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If those two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good. President Lyndon Johnson to the Greek ambassador in Washington (1964) ~ Richard Clogg

President Lyndon Johnson once said, "If the first person who answers the phone cannot answer your question, it is a bureaucracy." Don ~ Robert M. Gates

It may not be too late, whatever happens, if our President, Lyndon Johnson, knew the truth from me. But if I am eliminated, there won't be any way of knowing. ~ Jack Ruby

Surely, if we can land a spaceship on Mars, we can certainly put a voter ID card in the hand of every eligible voter. ~ Andrew Young

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

I am afraid, ... that health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives, must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of old age. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Reporters are like puppets. They simply respond to the pull of the most powerful strings. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it. ~ Richard Holbrooke

It is not clear who will bring to the Whitehouse those useful commodities of vivid language, a sense of history and most important - a sense of humour, but Johnson himself will provide many other attributes. He is effective precisely because he is so determined, industrious, personal and even humourless, particularly in dealing with Congress. ( ... ) Kennedy had a detached and even donnish willingness to grant a merit in the other fellow's argument. Johnson is not so inclined to retreat and grants nothing in an argument, not even equal time. Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. This may not be the most attractive quality of the new administration but it works. The lovers of style are not too happy with the new administration, but the lovers of substance are not complaining. ~ Robert A. Caro

The presently existing global financial and monetary system will disintegrate during the near term. The collapse might occur this spring, or summer, or next autumn; it could come next year; it will almost certainly occur during President William Clinton's first term in office; it will occur soon. That collapse into disintegration is inevitable, because it could not be stopped now by anything but the politically improbable decision by leading governments to put the relevant financial and monetary institutions into bankruptcy reorganization. ~ Lyndon LaRouche

Every gift contains a danger. Whatever gift we have we are compelled to express. And if the expression of that gift is blocked, distorted, or merely allowed to languish, then the gift turns against us, and we suffer. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Johnson. The junior congressman saw two things that no one else saw. The first was a possible connection between two groups that had previously had no link: conservative Texas oilmen and contractors - most notably his financial backer, Herman Brown, of Brown & Root - who needed federal contracts and tax breaks and were willing to spend money, a lot of money, to get them; and the scores of northern, liberal congressmen, running for re-election, who needed money for their campaigns. The second was that he could become that link. ~ Robert A. Caro

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.] ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

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. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

We have talked long enough ... about civil rights,' Lyndon Johnson had said. 'It is time ... to write it in the books of law' - to embody justice and equality in legislation. ~ Robert A. Caro

Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Education will not cure all the problems of society, but without it no cure for any problem is possible. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

"All men are created equal." "Government by consent of the governed." "Give me liberty or give me death." And those are not just clever words, and those are not just empty theories. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

As we maintain the vigil of peace, we must remember that justice is a vigil, too-a vigil we must keep in our own streets and schools and among the lives of all our people-so that those
who died here on their native soil shall not have died in vain. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. ~ Robert A. Caro

No one has the right to use America's rivers and America's Waterways, that belong to all the people. as a sewer. The banks of a river may belong to one man or one industry or one State, but the waters which flow between the banks should belong to all the people. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize Oh man ... I could be eating a slow learner. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

I'll have those n**gers voting Democratic for the next 200 years. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

I believe that the country weekly acts as a form of social cement in holding the community together. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don't think anybody has held this job who hasn't felt personally responsible for those being killed. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

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

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Try, if you will, to imagine Dwight Eisenhower or JFK or Lyndon Johnson or, for that matter, Ronald Reagan chin-wagging with Jack Paar or Johnny Carson. Richard Nixon did, famously, go on 'Laugh In' in 1968, but as a candidate; and to his credit, he rued the day and hated every second of it. ~ Christopher Buckley

But this belief demonstrated only that Lyndon Johnson simply had not grasped that there was another world, a world in which Douglas and Lehman were not crazies but heroes, in which principles mattered far more than they did in the Senate. In addition, Lyndon Johnson had not fully appreciated that it didn't matter what he did for the liberals in Social Security and housing so long as he was not on their side on the "great issue." He should have appreciated this. ~ Robert A. Caro

We must not only protect the country side and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities ... Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

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. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson