The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.

This is not Johnson's war. This is America's war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.

I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.

I'm the only president you've got.

The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance.

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!

A man without a vote is man without protection.

In our home there was always prayer - aloud, proud and unapologetic.

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don't think the press has understood me.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.

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

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.

There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn't fear me.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

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

Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.

I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

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

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.

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

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.

Every President wants to do right.

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.

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

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.

Did you ever think that 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.

While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.

If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

It is important that the United States remain a two-party system. I'm a fellow who likes small parties and the Republican Party can't be too small to suit me.

I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war.