John F. Kennedy Quotes

Blight has descended on our regulatory agencies - and a dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America - in the payola mentality, the expense account way of life, the confusion between what is legal and what is right.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.

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.

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.

It is no contradiction - the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major reduction ofindividualincometaxrates.

Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.

[War] can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

Time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life.

I had always enjoyed the title of Commander-in-Chief until I was informed ... that the only forces that cannot be transferred from Washington without my express permission are the members of the Marine Corps Band. Those are the only forces I have. I want it announced that we propose to hold the White House against all odds at least for some time to come.

We in this country, in this generation, areby destiny rather than choicethe watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, good will toward men. That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard.

Struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties.

There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.

It is true that my predecessor did not object, as I do, to pictures of one's golf skill in action. But neither, on the other hand, did he ever bean a Secret Serviceman.

The great free nations of the world must take control of our monetary problems if these problems are not to take control of us.

I do not belive that Washington should do for the people wha they can do for themselves through local and private effort.

But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future.

We must recognize that every nation determines its policies in terms of its own interests.

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas

The best way to progress is the path of freedom.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Just as I went into politics because Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

We hold the view that the people make the best judgment in the long run.

Bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us...No longer is the quest for disarmament a sign of weakness, (nor) the destruction of arms a dream - it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

Never before has man had such a great capacity to control his own environment, to end hunger, poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and human misery. We have the power to make the best generation of mankind in the history of the world.

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.

There is something that happens when we leave the land and enter the ocean. It's unexpected, the environment feels strangely welcoming. The ocean almost feels like... home.

The world has been close to war before - but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over.

The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.

I can evade questions without help; what I need is answers

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 greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

Whether I serve one or two terms in the Presidency, I will find myself at the end of that period at what might be called the awkward age-too old to begin a new career and too young to write my memoirs.

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

There is too little public recognition of how much we all depend upon farmers as stewards of our soil, water and wildlife resources.

You never know what's hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased - not a reduced - flow of revenues to the federal government.

I would encourage every American to walk as often as possible. It's more than healthy; it's fun.

Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

Self-government requires qualities of self-denial and restraint.

The essence of Vanderbilt is still learning, the essence of its outlook is still liberty, and liberty and learning will be and must be the touchstones of Vanderbilt University and of any free university in this country or the world. I say two touchstones, yet they are almost inseparable, inseparable if not indistinguishable, for liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.

Where else, in a non-totalitarian country, but in the political profession is the individual expected to sacrifice all-including his own career-for the national good?

While much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity-for the average woman worker earns only 60 percent of the average wage for men-this legislation is a significant step forward.

Dont teach my boy poetry, an English mother recently wrote the Provost of Harrow. Dont teach my boy poetry; he is going to stand for Parliament. Well, perhaps she was rightbut if more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place to live on this Commencement Day of 1956.

When I ran for Presidency of the United States, I knew that this country faced serious challenges, but I could not realize - nor could any man realize who does not bear the burdens of this office - how heavy and constant would be those burdens

A Canadian newspaperman said yesterday that this is the President's "Easter egghead roll on the White House lawn." I want to deny that!

The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.

We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age; the search for freedom and self fulfillment of man.

The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.

In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation.

Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank.

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

Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive

The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.