John F. Kennedy Quotes

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. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook-it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

The pay is good and I can walk to work.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.
John F. Kennedy

The three of us have been alone for such a long time. We welcome a fourth person.
John F. Kennedy

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
John F. Kennedy

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

There are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!
John F. Kennedy

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

There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in war and some men are wounded, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.
John F. Kennedy

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
John F. Kennedy

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
John F. Kennedy

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
John F. Kennedy

Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
John F. Kennedy

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

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

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

We are not against any man-or any nation-or any system-except as it is hostile to freedom.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
John F. Kennedy

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

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.
John F. Kennedy

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960's - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils - a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
John F. Kennedy

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

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.
John F. Kennedy

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.
John F. Kennedy

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

You never know what's hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.
John F. Kennedy

Back