Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

The main aim of any American President is to prevent World War III.

While most nations seemed to agree that something had to be done, every nation seemed to have a reason why some other nation should do it. So we sat, waiting for a promise to be kept, reduced to the role of accountants keeping track of how many were being killed.

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

The question whether the long effort to put an end to war can succeed without another major convulsion challenges not only our minds but our sense of responsibility.

... the greatest moral victory in the history of civilization if it actually keeps out of a war.

If American lives must end, and American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know, that is the price that change has demanded of conviction and of our enduring covenant.

Nations are what their deeds are.

Aside from the Punic Wars, which I was too young for, I have been blamed for everything.

Suppose another war on a huge scale is threatened, how can it be averted by recognizing and patching up treaties with a Power which makes not the least secret--and the frankness of the actual Soviet leaders we must admit--of its desire and intention to smash our whole system of civilization, including Christianity.

the issue of war or peace is an issue that concerns not only experts on Foreign Affairs but every citizen of the United States.

I'm going to spend a lot of time trying to explain as best I can why it's important for us to succeed in Iraq. I'm going to do what I think is right, and if, you know, if people don't like me for it, that's just the way it is.

I think war and armed conflict is always the last of all the options you have on the table. I think you try to avoid that at all costs. Sometimes it's unavoidable. That's the lesson of World War II. I think the other lesson of the last 50 or 60 years, however, is that, the stronger the U.S. military, the stronger our defense capabilities, the stronger the chances for peace are.

To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time.

I'm sure it is, I'm not for any kind of war, we've been engaged in several wars since the second world war and we lost in Korea, we lost in Vietnam, they are political wars, they have nothing to do with any real threat, nor does this one.

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.

I was part of a government that tried to resolve the question of Kosovo by war. Perhaps there is some justice that today I should be the person most responsible for finding a peaceful solution.

I thought this must be obvious to everyone else, as it seemed obvious to me; and that, if once it became apparent that we were on the edge, all the Great Powers would call a halt and recoil from the abyss.

The war industry people are very together; they know exactly what they want; they don't even have to talk to each other. The peace industry people are just intellectuals who are very critical of each other... Unless the peace industry is powerful, we're always going to have war. It is as simple as that.

In dreams begin responsibilities.

If U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned.

I personally hold Blair more responsible for this war than I do George Bush. The reason is, Blair knows better, Blair is not an idiot. What is he doing hanging around this guy?

If men do not now succeed in abolishing war, civilization and mankind are doomed.

The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.

One must always be aware, to notice even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.

I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.