Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
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We have just lost the South for a generation.
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Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.
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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.
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Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes ... No law that we now have on the books ...can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.
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What did you expect? I don't know why we're so surprised. When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off.
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I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people's right to know is cherished and guarded.
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I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle.
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Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.
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Therefore, I believe that we both have a heavy obligation to seek earnestly the path to peace. It is in response to that obligation that I am writing directly to you.
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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.
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Our government is united in its determination to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.
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In the Civil Rights Act of 1965, we affirmed through law for every citizen in this land the most basic right of democracy-the right of a citizen to vote in an election in his country. In the five States where the Act had its greater impact, Negro voter registration has already more than doubled.
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I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.
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We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences, that no one can perceive, nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power, but we will not surrender and we will not retreat, for behind our American pledge lies the determination and resources, I believe, of all of the American nation.
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And I just want to tell you this - we're in favor of a lot of things and we're against mighty few.
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For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own. ... Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.
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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. But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.
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Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
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It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
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We have tried over the past several years, in a variety of ways and through a number of channels, to convey to you and your colleagues our desire to achieve a peaceful settlement. For whatever reasons, these efforts have not achieved any results. . . .
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Of those to whom much is given, much is asked. I cannot say and no man could say that no more will be asked of us.
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I have always believed that freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted.
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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.
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There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans - not as Democrats or Republicans-we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.