“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
“When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
―
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
“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and wouldn't reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!”
―
John F. Kennedy
“And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation – the right to breathe air as nature provided it -- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?"
―
John F. Kennedy
“Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“There is inherited wealth in this country and also inherited poverty.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.”
―
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
“Perhaps the twentieth-century Senator is not called upon to risk his entire future on one basic issue in the manner of Edmund Ross or Thomas Hart Benton. Perhaps our modern acts of political courage do not arouse the public in the manner that crushed the career of Sam Houston and John Quincy Adams. Still, when we realize that a newspaper that chooses to denounce a Senator today can reach many thousand times as many voters as could be reached by all of Daniel Webster’s famous and articulate detractors put together, these stories of twentieth-century political courage have a drama, an excitement—and an inspiration—all their own.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free
―
John F. Kennedy
