A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

There are only two realities in life: death and laughter. We can do nothing to change the former, so we might as well do all we can to save the latter.

I want to emphasize in the great concentration which we now place upon scientists and engineers how much we still need the men and women educated in the liberal tradition, willing to take the long look, undisturbed by prejudices and slogans of the moment, who attempt to make an honest judgment on difficult events.

Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail.

A tired nation, said David Lloyd George, is a Tory nation, and the United States today cannot afford to be either tired or Tory.

Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.

And so it is that I carry with me from this State to that high and lonely office to which I now succeed more than fond memories and fast friendships. The enduring qualities of Massachusetts - the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant - will not be and could not be forgotten in the Nations Executive Mansion. They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, my hopes for the future.