Quotes' John F. Kennedy

50 Quotes of John F.Kennedy 

1. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

2. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

3. Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

4. My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

5. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

6. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

7. 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.

8. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

9. If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

10. Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

11. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

12. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

13. Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.

14. Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

15. Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

16. Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

17. Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

18. There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

19. The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.

20. Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

21.I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

22.The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

23. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

24. Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

25. In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

26. Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.

27. Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

28. When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

29. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

30. Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.

31. Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.

32. A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.

33. The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

34. The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

35. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

36. Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

37. 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 human morality.

38. Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

39. We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

40. Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

41. When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

42. It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

43. Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.

44. A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

45. In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.

46. We stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960's - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils - a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.

47. I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

48. When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

49. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

50. A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.