John F. Kennedy

“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

“Dick Nixon is the victim of the worst press that ever hit a politician in this country. What they did to him in the Helen Gahagan Douglas race was disgusting.”

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

“NAURO NATIVE KNOWS POSIT   HE CAN PILOT   11 ALIVE   NEED SMALL BOAT   KENNEDY”

“Where in the hell have you guys been? I've been at this bus stop for a whole week now."”

“Regarding the Republican Party: They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie, repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.”

“If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.”

“Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

“I have 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."”

“In the Chinese language, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity.”

“Senators, we hear, must be politicians – and politicians must be concerned only with winning votes, not with statesmanship or courage. Mothers may still want their favorite sons to grow up to be President, but according to a famous Gallup poll of some years ago, they do not want them to become politicians in the process.”

“But the question is how we will compromise and with whom. For it is easy to seize upon unnecessary concessions, not as means of legitimately resolving conflicts but as methods of “going along.””

“The voters selected us, in short, because they had confidence in our judgement and our ability to exercise that judgement from a position where we could determine what were their own best interest, as a part of the nation's interest.”

“Only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant, and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity.”

“We celebrate the past to awaken the future.”

“Now let me make it clear that I believe there can only be one defense policy for the United States and that is summed up in the word 'first.' I do not mean 'first, but'. I do not mean 'first, when'. I do not mean 'first, if'. I mean 'first — period'.”

“That requires only one kind of defense policy, a policy summed up in a single word "first." I do not mean "first, if," I do not mean "first, but," I do not mean "first, when," but I mean "First, period."”

“My call is not to those who believe they belong to the past. My call is to those who believe in the future.”

“Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions. Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo — and today there can be no status quo.”

“We have all seen these circus elephants complete with tusks, ivory in their head and thick skins, who move around the circus ring and grab the tail of the elephant ahead of them."”

“I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world.”

“I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none — who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him — and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.”

“I believe in an America where the free enterprise system flourishes for all other systems to see and admire — where no businessman lacks either competition or credit — and where no monopoly, no racketeer, no government bureaucracy can put him out of business that he built up with his own initiative.”

“Our prestige abroad, what other peoples think of us, is not of importance only to those Americans who work or travel abroad. The sign "Yankee go home" does not apply only to our diplomats, foreign-aid specialists, and military personnel who are stationed overseas.”

“We live under majority rule and if that majority is not well educated in its responsibilities, the whole Nation suffers.”

“This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself.”

“Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”

“The Federal Budget can and should be made an instrument of prosperity and stability, not a deterrent to recovery.”

“For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.”

“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American's capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

“It cannot be surprising that, as resistance within Cuba grows, refugees have been using whatever means are available to return and support their countrymen in the continuing struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties.”