You can read the original JFK Quotes Collection on this page

I have also created a new category of quotations titled History

And to ease your search for online resources about JFK, I have compiled a list of links to related web sites below:

• All about John Fitzgerald Kennedy: There Never was a Camelot by Thomas L. Jones ... from CrimeLibrary

• JFK Assassination Research Materials

• JFK Assassination Reports and Records

• JFK Lancer Productions & Publications:
  Features JFK assassination research materials including photos, maps, diagrams, articles, and documents.

• JFK LINK

• JFK Virtual Memorial Rose Garden online tributes, memorials, ...

• John Fitzgerald Kennedy President of the United States. Prayer Card From The Funeral of John F. Kennedy

• John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Home Page

• LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOHN F. KENNEDY

• NARA | JFK Assassination Records | JFK Home Page

• Speeches of John, Robert and Edward Kennedy from the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library

• The John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

• The Sights & Sounds of History - JFK Sounds from EarthStation1

• Latest News on JFK

1. "A police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow."

2. "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."

3. "As far as the job of President goes, its rewarding and I've given before this group the definition of happiness for the Greeks. I'll define it again: the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I find, therefore, that the Presidency provides some happiness."

4. "Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both."

5. "Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance."

6. "Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."

7. "Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. this is not the case."

8. "Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is also true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on."

9. "Failure has no friends."

10. "For of those to whom much is given, much is required."

11. "For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived."

12. "I have just received the following wire from my generous Daddy. It says, ''Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide.''"

13. "I never know when I press these whether I am going to blow up Massachusetts or start the project."

14. "I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

15. "In free society art is not a weapon. Artists are not engineers of the soul."

16. "In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country."

17. "In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside."

18. "It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war."

19. "It is our task in our time and in our generation to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."

20. "It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won."

    JFK and RFK, May 1961

21. "Life is unfair."

22. "Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men."

23. "Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life."

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

25. "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."

26. "Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."

27. "People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent... War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today."

28. "The basis of effective government if public confidence."

29. "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."

30. "The day before my inauguration President Eisenhower told me, ''You'll find that no easy problems ever come to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.'' I found that hard to believe, but now I know it is true."

31. "The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring this endeavor will light our bounty and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."

32. "The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."

33. "The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe... the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning."

34. "The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds."

35. "The human mind is our fundamental resource."

36. "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

37. "The margin is narrow, but the responsibility is clear."

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

39. "The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this planet."

40. "The United States has to move very fast to even stand still."

41. "The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion."

42. "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."

43. "There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press."

44. "There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war, and some men are wounded, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality."

45. "This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor."

46. "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

47. "Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."

48. "True happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope."

49. "You can milk a cow the wrong way once and still be a farmer, but vote the wrong way on a water tower and you can be in trouble."

50. "We are under exercised as a nation. We look instead of play. We ride instead of walk. Our existence deprives us of the minimum of physical activity essential for healthy living."

51. "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."

52. "We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."

53. "We hold the view that the people make the best judgment in the long run."

54. "We prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war in the age of mass extermination."

55. "We want to be first; not first if, not first but; but first!"

56. "We will neglect our cities to our peril, for in neglecting them we neglect the nation."

57. "We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it."

58. "When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

59. "When you have seven percent unemployed, you have ninety-three percent working."

60. "World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement."

They Dared to Dream