Quotes from John F. Kennedy

In that case, there is no time to lose. Plant it this afternoon!

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use; of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.

While they came from a variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God.

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.

Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

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

Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

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!

I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Food is strength, and food is peace, and food is freedom, and food is a helping hand to people around the world whose good will and friendship we want.

A Canadian newspaperman said yesterday that this is the President's "Easter egghead roll on the White House lawn." I want to deny that!

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

When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.

The White House was designed by Hoban, a noted Irish-American architect, and I have no doubt that he believed by incorporating several features of the Dublin style he would make it more homelike for any President of Irish descent. It was a long wait, but I appreciate his efforts.

The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.

Everything changes but change itself.

Change is the law of life.

Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation', a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

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 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 morality.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.