Quotes from Robert Kennedy

It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves.

Perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that LSD can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly.

The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.

There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.

I don't believe newspaper reporters can substitute for a district attorney, but a newspaper has a very valid investigative role. Newspaper reports on corruption in government, racketeering and organized crime conditions can be very helpful to your communities and the whole country.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

In the cases that come before the Department of Justice involving a wide range of unlawful activities, we see repeated evidence of family and community failures.

Freedom possesses many meanings. It speaks not merely in terms of political and religious liberty but also in terms of economic and social progress.

Nations around the world look to us for the leadership not merely by strength of arms but by strength of our convictions.

The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.

What is learned on the athletic field is not forgotten, nor are the lessons of character that are forged there ever lost. Consider the contributions in the field of public life, business, law, medicine, and the military of those who actively participated in athletics.

Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others.

It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

President Kennedy has named two Negroes to District Judgeships and appointed Thurgood Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals. When I came to the Department of Justice, there were only ten Negroes employed as lawyers; not a single Negro served as a United States Attorney - or ever had in the history of the country. That has been changed.

The Gross National Product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.

Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children.

Ultimately, Communism must be defeated by progressive political programs which wipe out the poverty, misery, and discontent on which it thrives.

The glory of justice and the majesty of law are created not just by the Constitution - nor by the courts - nor by the officers of the law - nor by the lawyers - but by the men and women who constitute our society - who are the protectors of the law as they are themselves protected by the law.

We in the United States believe in the protection of minorities; we recognize the contributions that they can make and the leadership that they can provide; and we do not believe that any people - whether majority or minority, or individual human beings - are 'expendable' in the cause of theory or of policy.

What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.

Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.