Don't ask 'Why', ask instead, 'Why not'.

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.

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

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe - a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. 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.

First I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon.

The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.

Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.