Quotes from John F. Kennedy

I am the one person who can truthfully say, I got my job through the New York Times.

All of us in the Senate live in an iron lung-the iron lung of politics, and it is no easy task to emerge from that rarified atmosphere in order to breathe the same fresh air our constituents breathe.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.

Peace is a process - a way of solving problems.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy "Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide."

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

Persons are judged to be great because of the positive qualities they possess, not because of the absence of faults.

When you have seven percent unemployed, you have ninety-three percent working.

Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.

Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

The Civil Rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business.

The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter.

There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.

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

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.

I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.