“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
―
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
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
―
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
“We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sure future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.
The problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
It has been a long road to this crowded convention city. Now begins another long journey, taking me into your cities and towns and homes all over America.
Give me your help. Give me your hand, your voice and your vote.”
―
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
“Our progress as a nation can be not swifter than our progress in education.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“There is, in addition to a courage with which men die; a courage by which men must live.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches 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
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings...Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...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.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“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 earth.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Immigration policy should be
generous; it should be fair; it should
be flexible. With such a policy we
can turn to the world, and to our own
past, with clean hands and a clear
conscience.”
―
John F. Kennedy
