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Quotes by John F. Kennedy


Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
– John F. Kennedy

If not us, who? If not now, when?
– John F. Kennedy

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
– John F. Kennedy
A child miseducated is a child lost.
– John F. Kennedy
A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
– John F. Kennedy
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
A revolution is coming - a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough - but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character, we cannot alter its inevitability.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
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!
– John F. Kennedy
All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
– John F. Kennedy
America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.
– John F. Kennedy
Art, that great undogmatized church.
– John F. Kennedy
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
– 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
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
– John F. Kennedy
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
– John F. Kennedy
Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.
– John F. Kennedy
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
– John F. Kennedy
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
– John F. Kennedy
I am reading it more and enjoying it less.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.
– John F. Kennedy
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
– John F. Kennedy
I hear it said that West Berlin is militarily untenable - and so was Bastogne, and so, in fact, was Stalingrad. Any danger spot is tenable if men - brave men - will make it so.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
I know that the White House was designed by James Hoban, a noted Irish-American architect, and I have no doubt that he believed by incorporating several features of the Dublin style he would make it more homelike for any president of Irish descent. It was a long wait, but I appreciate his efforts.
– John F. Kennedy
I know there is a God - I see the storm coming and I see his hand in it - if he has a place then I am ready - we see the hand.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.
– John F. Kennedy
I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.
– John F. Kennedy
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House-with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
– John F. Kennedy
I'm an idealist without illusions.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
– John F. Kennedy
If I had to live my life over again, I would have a different father, a different wife and a different religion.
– John F. Kennedy
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
– John F. Kennedy
Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.
– John F. Kennedy
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
– John F. Kennedy
It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.
– John F. Kennedy
It was absolutely involuntary. They sank my boat.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
– 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 - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.
– John F. Kennedy
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
– John F. Kennedy
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
– John F. Kennedy
Let's not talk so much about vice. I'm against vice in all forms.
– John F. Kennedy
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
– John F. Kennedy
My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
– John F. Kennedy
My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now.
– John F. Kennedy
My God, in this job he's got the nerve of a burglar.
– John F. Kennedy
Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.
– John F. Kennedy
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
– John F. Kennedy
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
– John F. Kennedy
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
– John F. Kennedy
Sure it's a big job; but I don't know anyone who can do it better than I can.
– John F. Kennedy
Tell him, if he doesn't mind, we'll shake hands.
– John F. Kennedy
The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
– John F. Kennedy
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
– 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 freedom of the city is not negotiable. We cannot negotiate with those who say, What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.
– John F. Kennedy
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
– John F. Kennedy
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
– John F. Kennedy
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
– John F. Kennedy
The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.
– John F. Kennedy
The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises-it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook-it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.
– John F. Kennedy
The pay is good and I can walk to work.
– 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 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.
– John F. Kennedy
The three of us have been alone for such a long time. We welcome a fourth person.
– 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.
– John F. Kennedy
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
– John F. Kennedy
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!
– John F. Kennedy
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
– John F. Kennedy
There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in war and some men are wounded, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.
– John F. Kennedy
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
– John F. Kennedy
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.
– John F. Kennedy
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
– John F. Kennedy
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
– John F. Kennedy
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
– 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
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
– John F. Kennedy
We are not against any man-or any nation-or any system-except as it is hostile to freedom.
– John F. Kennedy
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.
– John F. Kennedy
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
– John F. Kennedy
We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.
– John F. Kennedy
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier-the frontier of the 1960s-a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
– John F. Kennedy
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
– John F. Kennedy
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
– 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
You never know what's hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.
– John F. Kennedy
History will never accept difficulties as an excuse.
– John F. Kennedy
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
– John F. Kennedy