Great Throughts Treasury

"What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people. Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

"When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner."

"When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name."

"When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor."

"When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention."

"Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel."

"While you're saving your face you're losing your ass. Never trust a man whose eyes are too close to his nose. I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket. Better inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in."

"Whoever won't fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there."

"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."

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."

"You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: 'now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.' You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe you have been completely fair... This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity?not just legal equity but human ability?not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."

"You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy."

"You've got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you've got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote."