Quotes By John F. Kennedy

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

I'm an idealist without illusions.

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.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

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

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

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

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

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

Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

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

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

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.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.