John F. Kennedy Quotes

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

“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.”

“Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames.”

“Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.”

“The sun doesn't always shine in West Virginia, but the people do.”

“Each increase of tensionhas produced an increase of arms;each increase of armshas produced an increase of tension.”

“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.”

“There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in war and some men are wounded; some men never leave the country, some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”

“In that case, there is no time to lose. Plant it this afternoon!”

“I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world.”

“If scientific discovery has not been an unalloyed blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing”

“The deadly arms race, and the huge resources it absorbs, have too long overshadowed all else we must do. We must prevent that arms race from spreading to new nations, to new nuclear powers and to the reaches of outer space.”

“Since the time of the ancient Greeks, we have always felt that there was a close relationship between a strong, vital mind and physical fitness.”

“... the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy.”

“The lower the family income, the higher the probability that the mother must work. Today, 1 out of 5 of these working mothers has children under 3. Two out of 5 have children of school age. Among the remainder, about 50 percent have husbands who earn less than $5,000 a year-many of them much less. I believe they bear the heaviest burden of any group in our Nation. Where the mother is the sole support of the family, she often must face the hard choice of either accepting public assistance or taking a position at a pay rate which averages less than two-thirds of the pay rate for men.”

“We can say with some assurance that, although children may be the victims of fate, they will not be the victims of our neglect.”

“If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from saltwater, ..(this) would be in the long-range interests of humanity which could really dwarf any other scientific accomplishments.”

“I was never accepted into certain parts of New England society because my grandfather was an Irish barkeep.”

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

“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?”

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

“There has also been a change - a slippage - in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drouth and famine have withered a field of ideas.”

“At the start of 2005 the idea of downloading a song to a mobile phone was an idea, by the end of the year it was a reality.”

“Democracy may not be perfect, but at least I don't have to build a wall to keep my people in.”