“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.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Freedom is being allowed to think your own thoughts and live your own life.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“We, in this country, in this generation, are - by destiny rather than by choice - the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather
it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“There is, in addition to a courage with which men die; a courage by which men must live.”
―
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.
―
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
“probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
―
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.
―
John F. Kennedy
