“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
“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.”
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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.”
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John F. Kennedy
“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
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John F. Kennedy
“It is not always easy. Your successes are unheralded -- your failures are trumpeted. I sometimes have that feeling myself."
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John F. Kennedy
“Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment,...We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history or the world - or make it the last.”
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John F. Kennedy
“Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.”
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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
“Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.”
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John F. Kennedy
“The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of the nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose - and is a test to the quality of a nation's civilization.”
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John F. Kennedy
“We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.”
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John F. Kennedy