“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
“Great crisis produce great men and great deeds of courage.”
―
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.”
―
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
“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“War and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.”
―
John F. Kennedy
“[Public] libraries should be open to all—except the censor.
―
John F. Kennedy
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
―
John F. Kennedy
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
―
John F. Kennedy
“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”
―
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
