“We, in this country, in this generation, are - by destiny rather than by choice - the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.”
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John F. Kennedy
“What makes journalist so fascinating, and biography so interesting [is] the struggle to answer that single question: 'What's he like?”
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John F. Kennedy
“Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside”
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John F. Kennedy
“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”
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John F. Kennedy
“I'm shadowboxing in a match the shadow is always going to win. (as a young man battling his deceased brother's heroic legacy)”
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John F. Kennedy
“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.”
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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.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.”
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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.”
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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
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life.”
―
John F. Kennedy
