Top 779 Quotes & Sayings by John F. Kennedy - Page 2

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

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.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.

If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president's.

I look forward to a great future for America - 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.

America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.

Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

I'm an idealist without illusions.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

There are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.

Sure it's a big job; but I don't know anyone who can do it better than I can.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

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.

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.

I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. 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.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

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.

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for me.

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.

One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.

This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

Ask not that the journey be easy; ask instead that it be worth it.

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 our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most 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.

The Republican Party can lead any person to believe that their promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.