Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.

To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.

I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command.

It's possible to dazzle a crowd if you really work at it. But that is no qualification for leadership. Hitler was a master of crowds.

I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee.

No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.

I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.