Quotes By John F. Kennedy

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

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

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.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. 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.

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

A child miseducated is a child lost.

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.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.

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.

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

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.

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.

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

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.

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

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

Sure it's a big job; but I don't know anyone who can do it better than I can.

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.

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

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

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

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