Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

I've thought about it, not a lot, but I thought my relationship with Congress - the Democrats and Republicans - would help me get some things done. Not everything, but at least they'd be willing to try.

Any president has to work with Congress.

You need the House, you need the Senate and you need the administration. And absent one of them, you're not going to get a heck of a lot done.

If I can't negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I'm not a very good representative of my party.

When I embarked in the government, it was with a determination to intermeddle not at all with the legislature.

If Presidents are not looking for confrontations with the Congress—even with their own party members—then their aides are.

The Congress is the place where ordinary mortals go about the business of compromise—of compromise that gets us through the day.

I will continue to ask the president and his subordinates to work with Congress rather than against it.

I know well the coequal role of the Congress in our constitutional process. I love the House of Representatives. I revere the traditions of the Senate despite my too-short internship in that great body. As President, within the limits of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise, and cooperation.

The Senate's role is to advise and consent. Very little advice has been sought and consent has thus been a problem.

You cannot rely on House or Senate staff to pass a piece of legislation for you, but if you have antagonized staff, they can block you.

You start from the broad premise that all of us have a common duty to the country to perform. Legislation is always the art of the possible. You could, of course, follow a course of solid opposition, of stalemate, but that is not in the interest of the country.

The secret to legislative success in Virginia is courtesy, patience, and persistence; you usually get what you want. You won’t get it if you scream about it, and you won’t get it if you’re not willing to wait a long time.

The independence of the legislative arm must be respected. I had little taste for forcing Congressional action.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

Bipartisanship means you work together to work it out.

In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

The President has to persuade Congress to do what they do not want to do.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

Our governmental good fortune does not lie in any surrender at either end of the Avenue.

We need a lot more respect in this country for compromise…. There is in compromise a lot of integrity, especially political integrity.

The Constitution only works when branches of government trust one another and cooperate.

Legislation is the art of compromise.

This is good government. We have divided government. To make divided government work you can’t ask each other to compromise core principles…. We ask each other to find common ground for the common good.

That is a good bill. If you can beat it, go on and beat it, but you ought to give me a fair shake.