Top 280 Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

52. “Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

53. “The family is the corner stone of our society.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

54. “I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help – and God’s.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

55. “The crotch, down where your nuts hang, is always a little too tight.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

56. “Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

57. “Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

58. “The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

59. “There’s something special for everyone to do. Remember, no experience is a bad experience unless you gain nothing from it.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

60. “Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

61. “America has not always been kind to its artists and scholars. Somehow the scientists always seem to get the penthouse while the arts and humanities get the basement.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

62. “The thing I would like to do most is to find somehow to bring peace to the world. It has eluded me.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

63. “It is the excitement of becoming – always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again- but always trying and always gaining.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

64. “Power is where power goes.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

65. “If we must disagree, let’s disagree without being disagreeable.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

66. “This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

67. “The American West is just arriving at the threshold of its greatness and growth. Where the West of yesterday is glamorized in our fiction, the future of the American West now is both fabulous and factual.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

68. “We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

69. “Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

70. “There’s America, there’s the South, and then there’s Mississippi.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

71. “Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says in Latin: “God has favored our undertaking.” God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

72. “If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

73. “A man without a vote is man without protection.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

74. “Poverty has many roots, but the tap root is ignorance.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

75. “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.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

76. “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

77. “It is a truism that education is no longer a luxury. Education in this day and age is a necessity.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

78. “Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

79. “In the years since then, those four freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear – have stood as a summary of our aspirations for the American Republic and for the world.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

80. “No national sovereignty rules in outer space. Those who venture there go as envoys of the entire human race. Their quest, therefore, must be for all mankind, and what they find should belong to all mankind.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

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

— Lyndon B. Johnson

82. “This nation, this generation, in this hour has man’s first chance to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

83. “Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake – but for the nation’s sake.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

84. “I’m the only president you’ve got.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

85. “We must change to master change.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

86. “The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

87. “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.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

88. “Peace does not come just because we wish for it. Peace must be fought for. It must be built stone by stone.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

89. “What convinces is conviction.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

90. “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

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

— Lyndon B. Johnson

92. “Of those to whom much is given, much is asked.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

93. “I’d rather give my life than be afraid to give it.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

94. “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.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

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

— Lyndon B. Johnson

96. “Once we considered education a public expense; we know now that it is a public investment.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

97. “I am a compromiser and maneuverer. I try to get something. That’s the way our system works.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

98. “So here is the Great Society. It’s the time – and it’s going to be soon – when nobody in this country is poor.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

Featured in: Country Quotes

99. “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.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

100. “War is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson