John F. Kennedy Quotes

I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.

You know nothing for sure...except the fact that you know nothing for sure.

We've spent half the expenditures, we've wrecked our budget on all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in the pell-mell fashion is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind them, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. I think it would be a helluva thing for us.

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.

I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk.

I'm 43 years old and I'm the healthiest candidate for the Presidency of the United States. You've travelled with me enough to know that I'm not going to die in office.

Easy money, sudden fortunes, increasingly powerful political machines and blatant corruption transformed much of the nation; and the Senate, as befits a democratic legislative body, accurately represented the nation.

I know few significant questions of public policy which can safely be confided to computers. In the end, the hard decisions inescapably involve imponderables of intuition, prudence, and judgment.

Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. This is not the case.

National parks and reserves are an integral aspect of intelligent use of natural resources. It is the course of wisdom to set aside an ample portion of our natural resources as national parks and reserves, thus ensuring that future generations may know the majesty of the earth as we know it today.

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.

History will not judge our endeavors--and a government cannot be selected--merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

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

The state is the servant of the citizen, and not his master.

One hundred and fifty years ago the vacant lands of the West were opened to private use. One hundred years ago the Congress passed the Homestead Act, probably the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted. Under the impetus of that Act and other laws, more than 1.1 billion acres of the original public main have been transferred to private and non-federal public ownership. The 768 million acres remaining in federal ownership are a valuable national asset.

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.

In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. "Pursue peace," the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.

The very word Secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society.

The labor movement is people. Our unions have brought millions of men and women together, made them members one of another, and given them common tools for common goals. Their goals are goals for all America - and their enemies are the enemies for progress. The two cannot be separated.

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

The margin is narrow, but the responsibility is clear.

The most ideal approach to advance is the way of opportunity.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.

If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.

While they came from a variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

We cannot be satisfied with things as they are. We cannot be satisfied to drift, to rest on our oars, to glide over a sea whose depths are shaken by subterranean upheavals.

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

That is why the Aethenian law makers so decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. Confident that with your help, man will be what he was born to be, free and independent.

Politics is a jungle-torn between doing the right thing and staying in office.

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

Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

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.

But I think it is also important that we pay tribute and acknowledge another great principle, and that is the principle of religious conviction. Religious freedom has no significance unless it is accompanied by conviction.

An across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes ... to expand the incentives and opportunities of private expenditures.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

Let us make it clear that we will never turn our backs on our steadfast friends in Israel, whose adherence to the democratic way must be admired by all friends of freedom.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

Just because we cannot see clearly te end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

I believe in an America where the rights that I have described are enjoyed by all, regardless of their race or their creed or their national origin - where every citizen is free to think and speak as he pleases and write and worship as he pleases - and where every citizen is free to vote as he pleases, without instructions from anyone, his employer, the union leader or his clergyman.

Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.

While we shall negotiate freely, we shall not negotiate freedom.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

I dont think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists.