J

John F. Kennedy

77 quotes

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. His presidency was marked by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race, and the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement. Kennedy's speeches are among the most quoted in American political history.

“The pay is good and I can walk to work.”

— John F. Kennedy

Good

All Quotes by 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

Future

“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”

— John F. Kennedy

Knowledge

“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

Future

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

— John F. Kennedy

Society

“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

Strength

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

— John F. Kennedy

Education

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

— John F. Kennedy

Memorialday

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.”

— John F. Kennedy

War

“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

Future

“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

Work

“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

Men

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

— John F. Kennedy

Fitness

“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

Men

“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

Best

“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

Fear

“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.”

— John F. Kennedy

Freedom

“The best road to progress is freedom's road.”

— John F. Kennedy

Best

“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.”

— John F. Kennedy

Patriotism

“Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.”

— John F. Kennedy

Power

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

— John F. Kennedy

Peace