“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
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
―
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
“When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.”
―
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.”
―
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 one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”
―
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."
―
John F. Kennedy
“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Great crisis produce great men and great deeds of courage.”
―
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
“A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.”
―
John F. Kennedy
