Quotes by John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it - and the glow from that fire can truly light the world”

“Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. this is not the case.”

“We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it the last.”

“We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.”

“The war against hunger is truly mankinds war of liberation.”

“We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad”

“My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on”

“Those who make peaceful revolutions impossible will make violent revolutions inevitable”

“Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.”

“Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.”

“So let us begin anew - remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof”

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor”

“The poet and the politician have this in common: their greatness depends on the courage with which they face the challenges of life”

“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.”

“I know something about Mr. Khrushchev. ...Mr. Khrushchev himself, it is said, told the story about the Russian who began to run through the Kremlin shouting, Khrushchev is a fool, Khrushchev is a fool. He was sentanced, he said, to twenty-three years in prison: three for insulting the party secretary, and twenty for revealing a state secret.”

“We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient; that we are only 6 percent of the worlds population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity; and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”

“We choose to go...not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

“We shall need compromises in the days ahead, to be sure. But these will be, or should be, compromises of issues, not principles. We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves. We can resolve the clash of interests without conceding our ideals. And even the necessity for the right kind of compromise does not eliminate the need for those idealists and reformers who keep our compromises moving ahead, who prevent all political situations from meeting the description supplied by Shaw: smirched with compromise, rotted with opportunism, mildewed by expedience, stretched out of shape with wirepulling and putrefied with permeation.Compromise need not mean cowardice. ...”

“The Jewish people, ever since David slew Goliath, have never considered youth as a barrier to leadership.”

“If you will it, it is no dream.”