John F. Kennedy Quotes

The Mahalo Top 7

"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. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. 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.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

"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."

"The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises — it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them."

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

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

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

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure 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, and the others, too."

"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."

"A scientist has to prove every day that he belongs to the human part of mankind."

"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough — more than enough — of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success."

"I was never accepted into certain parts of New England society because my grandfather was an Irish barkeep."

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

"Two years ago, I introduced myself in Paris by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris"

"So, you want this rotten job?" (To Barry Goldwater, visiting him in the Oval Office)

"When we got into office, the one thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were."

Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle: "Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorenson continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona."

Michael Parenti, Dirty Truths: "Kennedy was the only member of his administration who didn't want to send in a massive ground force [to Vietnam]. […] Kennedy was also making very friendly overtures to the Soviet Union and calling for a real Detente in the Cold War, and was even reconsidering developing normal relationships with Cuba."

Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot: "Kennedy was at the hawkish end of the administration."

Google Video: John F. Kennedy Warns America of New World Order (Time 19:34)
YouTube: John F. Kennedy speaks in West-Berlin (Time 10:00)
YouTube: Speech Before Houston Ministers (Time 04:57)
YouTube: John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium (Time 09:18)
YouTube: John F. Kennedy's Acceptance Speech (Time 08:59)