Lyndon B. Johnson

We are now embarked on another venture to put the American dream to work in meeting the new demands of a new day. Once again we must start where men would improve their society have always known they must begin – with an educational system restudied, reinforced, and revitalized.

It is a truism that education is no longer a luxury. Education in this day and age is a necessity.

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.

Every man, everywhere, should be free to develop his talents to their full potential – unhampered by arbitrary barriers of race or birth or income.

Poverty has many roots, but the taproot is ignorance.

We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.

[On his donation of $100 million to UCLA in 2012 adding to the $200 million he donated in 2002] The cost of a world-class medical education should not deter our future innovators, doctors and scientists from the path they hope to pursue. We need the students at this world-class institution to be driven by determination and the desire to do their best work and not by the fear of crushing debt. I hope in doing this that others will be inspired to do the same.

Many schools include a service project as part of their curriculum, and many corporations have in-house projects for their employees or give them time off to do volunteer work.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

I would love to learn other languages, maybe French? My uncle speaks German so maybe also German? Chinese seems to be too difficult.

Let us not think of education only in terms of its costs, but rather in terms of the infinite potential of the human mind that can be realized through education. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.

Sometimes you get educated by being really bothered by things and you have to educate yourself on how to respond.

The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

One of the things that make community colleges so special is they do not pick and choose their students – they work with all students.

Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today’s youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million.

Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read, he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.

That experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

… because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.

In addition to an education, kids were supposed to graduate with some basic values, self-discipline, and life skills. A little common sense wouldn’t hurt either. Our schools don’t teach that anymore, instead we’re more concerned about kids having self-esteem and feeling good about themselves than we are about preparing them for real life. The politically correct crowd has taken over our schools, and as a result we are failing our children.