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Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

36th U.S. President

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Famous Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

“This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials. Motor vehicles and home heating plants, municipal dumps and factories continually hurl pollutants into the air we breathe. Each day almost 50,000 tons of unpleasant, and sometimes poisonous, sulfur dioxide are added to the atmosphere, and our automobiles produce almost 300,000 tons of other pollutants.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“A rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and mask on his face. They are both more or less what the law declares them: lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties and ultimately destroyers of a free America.”

MenWarHandsAmericaFacesLawFightingFreedomLibertyRightsFriendsConflictArgumentDestructionCivil RightsMaskSheetsCocktailsDestroyersConstitutional RightsMolotovMolotov Cocktail
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
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“We live amid falling taboos. In our crowded little hour of history we have seen how the prejudice of religion no longer can bar the way to the White House. Some of you may live to see the day when the prejudice of sex no longer places the Presidency beyond the reach of a greatly gifted American lady. Long before them, I hope you will see a woman member of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Congress and in our State Legislatures we need more women to bring their sensitive experience to the shaping of our decisions.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”

ThinkingKnowsWantChildrenRunningSchoolEarthMotherThreeStrongWomenTaughtHealthyCreaturesAmbitionAspirationFedsThreadManhoodThree ThingsFiberUnselfish
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals--and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am notsure would ever feel this way--some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“Now we may have more preachers out there than we have drinkers. But a fellow told me a story one time about a man down in Kentuckywhere they make bourbon. And he said you can take a jigger or two jiggers and get by all right. But if you try to take the whole bottle why you have lost what you started with. So don't try to take it too quick. And don't try to do all of it at once. I don't do much promising. I tell what my goals are and then I try to wrap it up and put a blue ribbon on it and get it delivered. We say put the coonskin on the wall.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it--to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“In my state, on the basis of the separate but equal doctrine, we have made enormous strides over the years in the education of both races. Personally, I think it would have been sounder judgment to allow that progress to continue through the process of natural evolution. However, there is no point crying about spilt milk.”

ThinkingYearsHas BeensMadeStatesProcessNaturalRaceEducationProgressCryEvolutionEqualJudgmentBasesEqualityEnormousDoctrineMilkNo PointStrideSounderSeparate But EqualSpilt Milk
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I don't believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.”

KnowsWorldNeedsBelieveDoeMomentsI BelievePresidentVoiceLibertyDestinyCenturyGreatnessThirdsDon't BelieveAccidentsBelieve In GodFranklinThird TimePresident Roosevelt
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“Government is best which is closest to the people. Yet that belief is betrayed by those State and local officials who engage in denying the right of citizens to vote. Their actions serve only to assure that their State governments and local governments shall be remote from the people, least representative of the people's will and least responsive to the people's wishes.”

PeopleStatesGovernmentActionBeliefWishCitizensVoteLocalsOfficialsRepresentativesClosestBetrayedState GovernmentLocal Government
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“To sustain an environment suitable for man, we must fight on a thousand battlegrounds. Despite all of our wealth and knowledge, we cannot create a redwood forest, a wild river, or a gleaming seashore.”

MenFightingWealthEnvironmentThousandRiversEnvironmentalForestsDespiteSustainabilitySuitableRedwoodsBattlegroundSeashore
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
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“The time has come when we cannot be so careless. Unless we do better, we may suffer through a stark emergency of the environment. We may create a hostile world: a world to bruise ourselves against; a world of sprawling cities, unplanned or badly planned; a world whose water is full of sludge, whose winds are full of soot; a world whose landscape has been totally neglected, stripped, marred, and wasted. All of this need not happen if we choose well, and particularly if we plan well and if we act well.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“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.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“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.”

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Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-1969
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“Air pollution is a threat to health, especially of older persons. It contributes significantly to the rising rates of chronic respiratory ailments. It stains our cities and towns with ugliness, soiling and corroding whatever it touches. Its damage extends to our forests and farmlands as well. The economic toll for our neglect amounts to billions of dollars each year.”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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