Quotes from John F. Kennedy

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. [Address at Rice University, September 12 1962]

Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. [Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. [Undelivered remarks for Dallas Trade Mart, November 22 1963]

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. [Quoting Reverend Phillips Brooks, during Remarks at Presidential Prayer Breakfast, February 7 1963]

One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. [Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. [Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, June 26 1963]

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." [ Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America ; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February 26, 1962]

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

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.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place, and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all.

Now is the time...for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.

The time is not far off when many nations in many parts of the world of many political shades and commitments will possess nuclear or even thermonuclear weapons.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, we have always felt that there was a close relationship between a strong, vital mind and physical fitness.

The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of the nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose - and is a test to the quality of a nation's civilization.

Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder

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

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

According to the ancient Chinese proverb, A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are