Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1396
AUTHOR:
Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–73)
QUOTATION:
I don’t believe in labels. I want to do the best I can, all the time. I want to be progressive without getting both feet off the ground at the same time. I want to be prudent without having my mind closed to anything that is new or different. I have often said that I was proud that I was a free man first and an American second, and a public servant third and a Democrat fourth, in that order, and I guess as a Democrat, if I had to take—place a label on myself, I would want to be a progressive who is prudent.
ATTRIBUTION:
President LYNDON B. JOHNSON, television and radio interview, March 15, 1964.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, book 1, p. 368.
