Top 779 Quotes & Sayings by John F. Kennedy - Page 11

If there is one path above all others to war, it is the path of weakness and disunity.

Wherever there is smoke there is a good smoke machine.

In America there must be only citizens, not divided by grade, first and second, but citizens, east, west, north, and south.

Israel was not created in order to disappear. Israel will endure and flourish.

If a beach-head of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

No one gains from fair employment law and legislation if there is no employment to be had.

As far as the job of President goes, its rewarding and I've given before this group the definition of happiness for the Greeks. I'll define it again: the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I find, therefore, that the Presidency provides some happiness.

Every president has taken comfort and courage when told...that the Lord "will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not-neither be thou dismayed."

There comes a point where you see no evidence that the carrot and diplomacy are working.

All over the world, particularly in the newer nations, young men are coming to power--men who are not bound by the traditions of the past--men who are not blinded by the old fears and hates and rivalries-- young men who can cast off the old slogans and delusions and suspicions.

I am grateful to those Members of Congress who worked so diligently to guide the Equal Pay Act through. It is a first step. It affirms our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay envelopes.

Nor problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics towards which we can be indifferent.

The world has been close to war before - but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over.

We have some of the most influential Members of Congress here today, and I do hope that we can get this appropriation for these day-care centers, which seems to me to be money very wisely spent, and also under consideration of the tax bill, that we can consider the needs of the working mothers, and both of these will be very helpful, and I would like to lobby in their behalf.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

And a revolution of automation finds machines replacing men in the mines and mills of America, without replacing their incomes or their training or their needs to pay the family doctor, grocer and landlord.

If we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will undermine our capcity for thought, for work, and for use of those skills vital to an expanding and complex America.

Football today is far too much a sport for the few who can play it well; the rest of us, and too many of our children, get out exercise from climbing up the seats in stadiums, or from walking across the room to turn on our television sets.

Easy money, sudden fortunes, increasingly powerful political machines and blatant corruption transformed much of the nation; and the Senate, as befits a democratic legislative body, accurately represented the nation.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said Because it is there. Well, space is there, and were going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.

Je me sens vraiment entre amis. (I feel that I am truly among friends.)

I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high - to permit the customary passions of political debate.

We support the security of both Israel and her neighbors.

Science contributes to our culture in many ways, as a creative intellectual activity in its own right, as the light which has served to illuminate man's place in the universe, and as the source of understanding of man's own nature.

Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave.

We must formulate, with both imagination and restraint, a new approach to the Middle East - not pressing our case so hard that the Arabs feel their neutrality and nationalism are threatened ... while at the same time trying to hasten the inevitable Arab acceptance of the permanence of Israel ... We must ... seek a permanent settlement among Arabs and Israelis based not on an armed truce but on mutual self-interest.

When things don't go well they like to blame presidents; and that's something that presidents are paid for.

In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society. ... There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for all of the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself.

We must live our lives in such a way that our children, and their children after them, will form a natural and lasting commitment to the vigorous life. Only in this way can we be assured that the spirit and strength of America will be constantly replenished.

I also want to take cognizance of the fact that this flight was made out in the open with all the possibilities of failure, which would have been damaging to our country's prestige. Because great risks were taken in that regard, it seems to me that we have some right to claim that this open society of ours which risked much, gained much.

While they came from a variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God.

There has also been a change - a slippage - in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drouth and famine have withered a field of ideas.

Whether they be young in spirit, or young in age, the members of the Democratic Party must never lose that youthful zest for new ideas and for a better world, which has made us great.

If scientific discovery has not been an unalloyed blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing

So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

We don't want to be like the leader in the French Revolution who said There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.

If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

While we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.

We are inclined to think that if we watch a football game or a baseball game, we have taken part in it.

A life of complete leisure is the hardest work of all.

It is no contradiction - the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major reduction ofindividualincometaxrates.

Success has many fathers.

An across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes ... to expand the incentives and opportunities of private expenditures.

A technological revolution on the farm has led to an output explosion--but we have not yet learned to harness that explosion usefully, while protecting our farmers' right to full parity income

In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone-and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life-he [Churchill] mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.

There is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful.

We had a dog who was named Pushinka, who was given to my father by a Soviet official. And we trained that dog to slide down the slide we had in the back of the White House. Sliding the dog down that slide is probably my first memory.

We must create world-wide law and law enforcement as we outlaw world-wide war and weapon

I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.

While we shall negotiate freely, we shall not negotiate freedom.

I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world.

No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can, if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers, offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.

All students, members of the faculty, and public officials in both Mississippi and the Nation will be able, it is hoped, to return to their normal activities with full confidence in the integrity of American law. This is as it should be, for our Nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.