“The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Today our concern must be with the future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Woodrow Wilson, for example, shortly before his death, buffeted by the Senate in his efforts on behalf of the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty, rejected the suggestion that he seek a seat in the Senate from New Jersey, stating: “Outside of the United States, the Senate does not amount to a damn. And inside the United States the Senate is mostly despised; they haven’t had a thought down there in fifty years.” There are many who agreed with Wilson in 1920, and some who might agree with those sentiments today.
―
John F. Kennedy
“I love her deeply and have done everything for her. I’ve no feeling of letting her down because I’ve put her foremost in everything.”
―
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
“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
“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Described Washington as a community of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.”
―
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, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.”
―
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
“Freedom is being allowed to think your own thoughts and live your own life.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.”
―
John F. Kennedy
