All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
And therefore, as a free man, I take pride
in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
- John F. Kennedy
My father always told me that
all businessmen were sons of bitches,
but I never believed it till now.
- John F. Kennedy
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
- John F. Kennedy
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
- John F. Kennedy
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot.
Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
- John F. Kennedy
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president,
but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
- John F. Kennedy
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.
- 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
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack
that life is extinct on other planets
because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
- John F. Kennedy
Washington is a city of
Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
- John F. Kennedy
Victory has a thousand fathers,
but defeat is an orphan.
- John F. Kennedy
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge
and the dissemination of truth.
- John F. Kennedy
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process,
gradually changing opinions,
slowly eroding old barriers,
quietly building new structures.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
The problems of the world cannot possibly
be solved by skeptics or cynics
whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
- John F. Kennedy
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy
I look forward to an America which
will not be afraid of grace and beauty.
- John F. Kennedy
Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.
- John F. Kennedy
No one has been barred on account of his race
from fighting or dying for America,
there are no white or colored signs
on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
The pay is good and I can walk to work.
- John F. Kennedy
Communism has never come to power in a country
that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
- John F. Kennedy
The very word "secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society;
and we are as a people inherently and historically
opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
- John F. Kennedy
I'm an idealist without illusions.
- John F. Kennedy
If we cannot now end our differences,
at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
- 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
The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle
than the courage of a final moment;
but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
- John F. Kennedy
The basic problems facing the world today
are not susceptible to a military solution.
- John F. Kennedy
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
- John F. Kennedy
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
- John F. Kennedy
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
Our growing softness,
our increasing lack of physical fitness,
is a menace to our security.
- John F. Kennedy
I'm always rather nervous about how you talk
about women who are active in politics,
whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.
- John F. Kennedy
America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.
- 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
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.
- John F. Kennedy
I hope that no American will waste his franchise
and throw away his vote
by voting either for me or against me solely
on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
- John F. Kennedy
In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon,
it will be an entire nation.
For all of us must work to put him there.
- John F. Kennedy
I think "Hail to the Chief" has a nice ring to it.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
Mankind must put an end to war
before war puts an end to mankind.
- John F. Kennedy
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy
If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill
a president of the United States, he can do it.
All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president's.
- John F. Kennedy
As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words, but to live by them.
- John F. Kennedy
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
- John F. Kennedy
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
- John F. Kennedy
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
- 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
The greater our knowledge increases
the more our ignorance unfolds.
- John F. Kennedy
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
- John F. Kennedy
There are risks and costs to action.
But they are far less than the long range
risks of comfortable inaction.
- John F. Kennedy
We believe that if men have the talent
to invent new machines that put men out of work,
they have the talent to put those men back to work.
- 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
Now we have a problem in making our power credible,
and Vietnam is the place.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
We prefer world law in the age of self-determination
to world war in the age of mass extermination.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- John F. Kennedy
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier ...
a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -
a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
- John F. Kennedy
The cost of freedom is always high,
but Americans have always paid it.
And one path we shall never choose,
and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
- John F. Kennedy
War will exist until that distant day
when the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and prestige
that the warrior does today.
- John F. Kennedy
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory.
It can no longer serve to settle disputes...
can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.
- John F. Kennedy
There are many people in the world who really don't understand -
or say they don't - what is the great issue between the free world
and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!
- John F. Kennedy
We would like to live as we once lived,
but history will not permit it.
- John F. Kennedy
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs.
Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
- John F. Kennedy
Do not pray for easy lives.
Pray to be stronger men.
- John F. Kennedy
The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.
- John F. Kennedy
To state the facts frankly
is not to despair the future nor indict the past.
The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies
and gives a faithful accounting
to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
- John F. Kennedy
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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