Quotations from John F. Kennedy
A child miseducated is a child lost.
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
A
nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood
in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
A
nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has
been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard
that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have
forgotten.
A young man who does not have what it takes to
perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a
living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core
unemployed.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens
of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich
bin ein Berliner!"
America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.
Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
For
time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And
those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the
future.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
Geography
has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made
us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so
joined together, let no man put asunder.
History is a relentless
master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To
try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
I am not the Catholic
candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for
President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
I am sorry to say
that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on
other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
I
hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote
by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious
affiliation. It is not relevant.
I just received the following
wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more
than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.
I
look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our
country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its
wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.
I
think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human
knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the
possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
I'm
always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in
politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as
politicians.
I'm an idealist without illusions.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
If
anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United
States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life
for the president's.
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
In
a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be
an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.
In
the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted
the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not
shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
Israel was not
created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is
the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken
by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of
democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.
Khrushchev
reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to
hang the tiger's skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger
has other ideas.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
Let
both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its
terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts,
eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and
commerce.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or
ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the
success of liberty.
Let the word go forth from this time and
place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new
generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war,
disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Let
us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the
right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us
accept our own responsibility for the future.
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
Modern
cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust
the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to
whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now.
My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
No
one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for
America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or
graveyards of battle.
Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.
Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.
Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.
Our
most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all
breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are
all mortal.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be
solved by man. And man can be a s big as he wants. No problem of human
destiny is beyond human beings.
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
Peace
is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions,
slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
Physical
fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body,
it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
Sure it's a big job; but I don't know anyone who can do it better than I can.
The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.
The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
The
cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And
one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or
submission.
The courage of life is often a less dramatic
spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a
magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
The
great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate,
contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and
unrealistic.
The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
The
path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths
are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid
it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of
surrender, or submission.
The pay is good and I can walk to work.
The
problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics
whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who
can dream of things that never were.
The tax on capital gains
directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk
capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in
obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in
the economy.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
The
very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are
as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to
secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
The world is very
different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish
all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
There
are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they
don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist
world. Let them come to Berlin!
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
There
is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men
are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
To
state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the
past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and
gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of
trust.
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
Unconditional
war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve
to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
War
will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
We
are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation
that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an
open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
We are
tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to
sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.
We
believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men
out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.
We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.
We
stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960's
- a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils - a frontier of
unfulfilled hopes and threats.
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
When
power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his
limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry
reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power
corrupts, poetry cleanses.
When we got into office, the thing
that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd
been saying they were.
When written in Chinese, the word
"crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the
other represents opportunity.