101 quotes
Almost all general statements about the world are wrong. They are not necessarily false; they seem to me just to be inadequate.
Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Annual Dinner (1964)
It is empty to plead that the solution to the dilemmas of the present rests on the hands of the clock. The solution is in our hands.
Memorial Day speech (1963)
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over.
The American Promise (1965)
We will serve all the Nation, not one section or one sector, or one group, but all Americans. These are the United States-a united people with a united purpose.
Let Us Continue (1963)
This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.
The human mind is our fundamental resource. This is the most fundamental truth of our system and our society and of every success that we have achieved or hope to achieve.
St. Louis University address (1964)
Weapons do not make peace. Men make peace. And peace comes not through strength alone, but through wisdom and patience and restraint.
Democratic National Convention (1964)
I do not want us to fight a war that no one ever meant to begin.
Control of Nuclear Weapons (1964)
I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.
Televised speech declining re-nomination (1968)
America would be a place where each man could be proud to be himself: stretching his talents, rejoicing in his work, important in the life of his neighbors and his nation.
Inaugural address (1965)
We are, and we will remain, the strongest nation on earth. We are, and we will always be, ready to defend freedom anywhere.
Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Annual Dinner (1964)
We aspire to nothing that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our fellow man, but man's dominion over tyranny and misery.
Inaugural address (1965)
Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime—and mine.
Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (1964)
We don't propose to sit here in our rocking chair with our hands folded and let the Communists set up any government in the Western Hemisphere.
This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.
Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)
I am going to build the kind of nation that President Roosevelt hoped for, President Truman worked for and President Kennedy died for.
Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.
The American Promise (1965)
For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equality depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to violence but on respect for law and order.
The American Promise (1965)
These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall over, come.
The American Promise (1965)