“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.”
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John F. Kennedy
“[Public] libraries should be open to all—except the censor.
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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”
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John F. Kennedy
“Woodrow Wilson, for example, shortly before his death, buffeted by the Senate in his efforts on behalf of the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty, rejected the suggestion that he seek a seat in the Senate from New Jersey, stating: “Outside of the United States, the Senate does not amount to a damn. And inside the United States the Senate is mostly despised; they haven’t had a thought down there in fifty years.” There are many who agreed with Wilson in 1920, and some who might agree with those sentiments today.
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John F. Kennedy
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
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John F. Kennedy
“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Of course, it would be much easier if we could all continue to think in traditional political patterns—of liberalism and conservatism, as Republicans and Democrats, from the viewpoint of North and South, management and labor, business and consumer or some equally narrow framework. It would be more comfortable to continue to move and vote in platoons, joining whomever of our colleagues are equally enslaved by some current fashion, raging prejudice or popular movement. But today this nation cannot tolerate the luxury of such lazy political habits. Only the strength and progress and peaceful change that come from independent judgment and individual ideas—and even from the unorthodox and the eccentric—can enable us to surpass that foreign ideology that fears free thought more than it fears hydrogen bombs. We shall need compromises in the days ahead, to be sure. But these will be, or should be, compromises of issues, not of principles. We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves.”
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John F. Kennedy
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
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John F. Kennedy
“War and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.”
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John F. Kennedy
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life.”
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John F. Kennedy