“I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
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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
“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
―
John F. Kennedy
“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
―
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.”
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Of course, it would be much easier if we could all continue to think in traditional political patterns—of liberalism and conservatism, as Republicans and Democrats, from the viewpoint of North and South, management and labor, business and consumer or some equally narrow framework. It would be more comfortable to continue to move and vote in platoons, joining whomever of our colleagues are equally enslaved by some current fashion, raging prejudice or popular movement. But today this nation cannot tolerate the luxury of such lazy political habits. Only the strength and progress and peaceful change that come from independent judgment and individual ideas—and even from the unorthodox and the eccentric—can enable us to surpass that foreign ideology that fears free thought more than it fears hydrogen bombs. We shall need compromises in the days ahead, to be sure. But these will be, or should be, compromises of issues, not of principles. We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The cost of freedom is always high, but people have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
―
John F. Kennedy
