Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?
— John F. Kennedy
In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.
Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.
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.
The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.
Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.
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.
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
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.
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.
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.
I'm an idealist without illusions.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
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.
Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for me.
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.
I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.
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.
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.
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
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.
Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
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.
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
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.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
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.
Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
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.
Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.
I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
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.
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.
A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.
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.
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.
Sure it's a big job; but I don't know anyone who can do it better than I can.
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.
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
