100+ Quotes by John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, stands as an iconic figure in American history. His presidency, spanning from 1961 to 1963, was marked by a fervent commitment to civil rights, space exploration, and global diplomacy. Kennedy's inspiring oratory, most notably exemplified by his famous inaugural address with the line "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," resonated with a generation, fostering a sense of civic duty and unity. Despite the challenges posed by the Cold War, Kennedy's leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated his strategic acumen and commitment to averting nuclear catastrophe. Tragically, his presidency was cut short by his assassination in 1963, leaving behind a legacy of hope, progress, and unfulfilled potential.
John F. Kennedy Quotes
One person can make a difference, and everyone should try. (Meaning)
My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. (Meaning)
Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. (Meaning)
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. (Meaning)
Don't pray for an easy life, pray to be a stronger man. (Meaning)
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. (Meaning)
The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. (Meaning)
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. (Meaning)
We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives. (Meaning)
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. (Meaning)
The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. (Meaning)
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. (Meaning)
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. (Meaning)
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. (Meaning)
Sometimes party loyalty asks too much. (Meaning)
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. (Meaning)
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth. (Meaning)
To those whom much is given, much is expected. (Meaning)
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. (Meaning)
Justice delayed is democracy denied. (Meaning)
Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside (Meaning)
We need men who can dream of things that never were. (Meaning)
The only reason to give a speech is to change the world. (Meaning)
Here on earth, God's work must surely be our own. (Meaning)
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. (Meaning)
We celebrate the past to awaken the future. (Meaning)
Great crises produce great men, and great deeds of courage. (Meaning)
Sincerity is always subject to proof. (Meaning)
A child miseducated is a child lost. (Meaning)
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch. (Meaning)
Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain. (Meaning)
The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation. (Meaning)
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. (Meaning)
The rising tide lifts all the boats. (Meaning)
The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. (Meaning)
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. (Meaning)
The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet. (Meaning)
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man (Meaning)
The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds. (Meaning)
We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution. (Meaning)
Failure has no friends. (Meaning)
Physical Fitness is the basis for all other forms of excellence. (Meaning)
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. (Meaning)
We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. (Meaning)
The human mind is our fundamental resource. (Meaning)
There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change. (Meaning)
Everything changes but change itself. (Meaning)
The pay is good and I can walk to work. (Meaning)
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier. (Meaning)
We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad. (Meaning)
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses (Meaning)
Fail miserably, achieve greatly! (Meaning)
A journey to Thousand miles begins with one step (Meaning)
The very word Secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society. (Meaning)
O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small. (Meaning)
Peace is a process, a way of solving problems (Meaning)
I'm an idealist without illusions. (Meaning)
Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. (Meaning)
Success has many fathers. (Meaning)
America has tossed its cap over the wall of space. (Meaning)
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
The Republican Party can lead any person to believe that their promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.
This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
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.
One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
Don't pray for an easy life, pray to be a stronger man.
My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.
Our task is not to fix blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future.
Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
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.
I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.
Democracy may not be perfect, but at least I don't have to build a wall to keep my people in.
For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, "hold office"; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.
We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.
The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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.
Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.
There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow.
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
Never let your fears hold you back from pursuing your hopes.
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.
Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of the people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
Hold fast to the best of the past and move fast to the best of the future.
I would rather be accused of breaking precedents than breaking promises.
So long as freedom from hunger is only half achieved, so long as two thirds of the nations have food deficits, no citizen, no nation can afford to be satisfied. We have the ability, as members of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We only need the will.
The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive.
Only an educated and informed people will be a free people.
We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day
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.
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.
So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.
There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
The state is the servant of the citizen, and not his master.
A boy spends his time finding a girl to sleep with. A real man spends his time looking for the one worth waking up to.
The problems with this world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who can dream of things that never were.
Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.
The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.
Lets talk to one another instead of about one another.
When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
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.
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.
Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.
Ask not that the journey be easy; ask instead that it be worth it.
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.
Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget.
The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.
If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
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.
It is in the American tradition to stand up for one's rights--even if the new way to stand up for one's rights is to sit down.
Politics is a jungle-torn between doing the right thing and staying in office.
Persons are judged to be great because of the positive qualities they possess, not because of the absence of faults.
The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight.
Don't ask 'Why', ask instead, 'Why not'.
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes - one for peace and one for science.
The only reason to give a speech is to change the world.
It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.
Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside
All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.
"When my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same."
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
Justice delayed is democracy denied.
Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.
Intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong.
There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility.
History will never accept difficulties as an excuse.
Only in winter can you tell which trees are truly green. Only when the winds of adversity blow can you tell whether an individual or a country has steadfastness.
Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.
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.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
No sane society chooses to commit national suicide.
It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.
It is not our wealth that built our roads, but it is our roads that built our wealth.
Let us not be blind to our differences-but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
"Each success brings with it the potential of failure and each failure brings with it the potential of success."
Time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life.
It is time for a new generation of leadership.
This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened ... It ought to to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
The only valid test of leadership is the ability to lead, and lead vigorously.
To those whom much is given, much is expected.
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
Here on earth, God's work must surely be our own.
Neither smiles nor frowns, neither good intentions nor harsh words, are a substitute for strength.
The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.
A medical revolution has extended the life of our elder citizens without providing the dignity and security those later years deserve.
Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
Great crises produce great men, and great deeds of courage.
There are three things in life which are real: God, human folly and laughter. Since the first two are beyond our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.
Libraries should be open to all - except the censor.
Sincerity is always subject to proof.
The Greeks understood that mind and body must develop in harmounious proportions to produce a creative intelligence.
Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people.
We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.
The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter.
American history is not something dead and over. It is always alive, always growing, always unfinished.
For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
We can have faith in the future only if we have faith in ourselves.
Not everyone has equal abilities, but everyone should have equal opportunity for education.
Our nation is founded on the principal that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.
Compromise does not mean cowardice.
The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution.
Show me a man with a great golf game, and I’ll show you a man who has been neglecting something.
You know nothing for sure...except the fact that you know nothing for sure.
A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget....As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.
― John F. Kennedy Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
