“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
―
John F. Kennedy
“I look forward to a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Freedom is being allowed to think your own thoughts and live your own life.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“It is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider the others.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The greater our knowledge increases the greater our ignorance unfolds.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
―
John F. Kennedy
“To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color”
―
John F. Kennedy
“It is not always easy. Your successes are unheralded -- your failures are trumpeted. I sometimes have that feeling myself."
―
John F. Kennedy
