Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
- John F. Kennedy
Related topics: Bold Choice Courage Adventure Positive Motivational Live-By
When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- 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
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy
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The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy
I'm an idealist without illusions.
- 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
Do not pray for easy lives.
Pray to be stronger men.
- John F. Kennedy
We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
- John F. Kennedy
Once you say you're going to settle for second,
that's what happens to you in life.
- John F. Kennedy
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
- John F. Kennedy
A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences,
in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -
and that is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy
For time and the world do not stand still.
Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
- John F. Kennedy
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
- 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
As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words, but to live by them.
- John F. Kennedy
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
- John F. Kennedy
Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
- John F. Kennedy
The greater our knowledge increases
the more our ignorance unfolds.
- John F. Kennedy
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process,
gradually changing opinions,
slowly eroding old barriers,
quietly building new structures.
- John F. Kennedy
Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children
a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing.
- John F. Kennedy
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge
and the dissemination of truth.
- John F. Kennedy
A child miseducated is a child lost.
- John F. Kennedy
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
- John F. Kennedy
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.
- 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
Victory has a thousand fathers,
but defeat is an orphan.
- John F. Kennedy
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot.
Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
- John F. Kennedy
The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle
than the courage of a final moment;
but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
- John F. Kennedy
Washington is a city of
Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
- John F. Kennedy
History is a relentless master.
It has no present, only the past rushing into the future.
To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
- John F. Kennedy
Let us seek to invoke the wonders of science ...
explore the stars, conquer the deserts,
eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths,
and encourage the arts and commerce.
- John F. Kennedy
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack
that life is extinct on other planets
because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
- John F. Kennedy
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
- John F. Kennedy
My father always told me that
all businessmen were sons of bitches,
but I never believed it till now.
- John F. Kennedy
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president,
but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
- John F. Kennedy
And so, my fellow Americans,
ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country.
- John F. Kennedy
I'm always rather nervous about how you talk
about women who are active in politics,
whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.
- 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
No one has been barred on account of his race
from fighting or dying for America,
there are no white or colored signs
on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.
- John F. Kennedy
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
And therefore, as a free man, I take pride
in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
- John F. Kennedy
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier ...
a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -
a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
- John F. Kennedy
Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.
- John F. Kennedy
We believe that if men have the talent
to invent new machines that put men out of work,
they have the talent to put those men back to work.
- John F. Kennedy
I think "Hail to the Chief" has a nice ring to it.
- John F. Kennedy
Mankind must put an end to war
before war puts an end to mankind.
- John F. Kennedy
I hope that no American will waste his franchise
and throw away his vote
by voting either for me or against me solely
on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
- John F. Kennedy
In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon,
it will be an entire nation.
For all of us must work to put him there.
- John F. Kennedy
We would like to live as we once lived,
but history will not permit it.
- John F. Kennedy
If we cannot now end our differences,
at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
- John F. Kennedy
I look forward to a great future for America -
a future in which our country will match its military strength
with our moral restraint,
its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
- 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
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
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
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
America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.
- John F. Kennedy
I look forward to an America which
will not be afraid of grace and beauty.
- John F. Kennedy
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
Communism has never come to power in a country
that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
- John F. Kennedy
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
In the long history of the world,
only a few generations have been granted the role
of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
- 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
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 basic problems facing the world today
are not susceptible to a military solution.
- John F. Kennedy
A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage
which in the past has been brought to public life
is not as likely to insist upon or regard
that quality in its chosen leaders today -
and in fact we have forgotten.
- 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
Physical fitness is not only one of
the most important keys to a healthy body,
it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
- John F. Kennedy
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and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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