“People often tell me I could be a great man. I'd rather be a good man.”
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.”
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John F. Kennedy
“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came.
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John F. Kennedy
“The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”
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John F. Kennedy
“What makes journalist so fascinating, and biography so interesting [is] the struggle to answer that single question: 'What's he like?”
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John F. Kennedy
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable”
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John F. Kennedy
“You can't relate to a superhero, to a superman, but you can identify with a real man who in times of crisis draws forth some extraordinary quality from within himself and triumphs but only after a struggle.”
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“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
“The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and wouldn't reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!”
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John F. Kennedy
“It is when the politician loves neither the public good nor himself, or when his love for himself is limited and is satisfied by the trappings of office, that the public interest is badly served.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
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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)”
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John F. Kennedy