Quotes by 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."

"Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom."

"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."

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

"Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security."

"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."

"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

"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."

"Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource."

"The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth."

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

"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."

"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."