John F. Kennedy Quotes

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.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

Why should man’s first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?

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.

A child miseducated is a child lost.

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 United States has to move very fast to even stand still.

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.

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 have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

I don’t think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.

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.

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.

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.

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!‘

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.

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.

America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

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.

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.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

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.

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.

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.

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

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.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate… we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

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.

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.

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!

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.

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.

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.

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.

I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters – and the church does not speak for me.

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.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

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.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

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.

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

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.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

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.

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.