“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
“Every dollar released from taxation, that is spent or invested, will create a new job and a new salary.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“I'm shadowboxing in a match the shadow is always going to win. (as a young man battling his deceased brother's heroic legacy)”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
―
John F. Kennedy
“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.”
―
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
“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?”
―
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
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House-- with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“And finally, at age seventy, having distinguished himself as a brilliant Secretary of State, an independent President and an eloquent member of Congress, he was to record somberly that his “whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I ever undertook.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“So, 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 now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic 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.”
―
John F. Kennedy
