“probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone.”
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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."
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
―
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
“Freedom is being allowed to think your own thoughts and live your own life.”
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John F. Kennedy
“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.”
―
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. 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 morality.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Perhaps the twentieth-century Senator is not called upon to risk his entire future on one basic issue in the manner of Edmund Ross or Thomas Hart Benton. Perhaps our modern acts of political courage do not arouse the public in the manner that crushed the career of Sam Houston and John Quincy Adams. Still, when we realize that a newspaper that chooses to denounce a Senator today can reach many thousand times as many voters as could be reached by all of Daniel Webster’s famous and articulate detractors put together, these stories of twentieth-century political courage have a drama, an excitement—and an inspiration—all their own.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“It is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider the others.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.”
―
John F. Kennedy
