John F. Kennedy Quotes
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There are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious. . . I think the fate not only of our own civilization, but I think the fate of world and the future of the human race, is involved in preventing a nuclear war.
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There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
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Partnership is not a posture but a process-a continuous process that grows stronger each year as we devote ourselves to common tasks.
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The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
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The voters selected us, in short, because they had confidence in our judgement and our ability to exercise that judgement from a position where we could determine what were their own best interest, as a part of the nation's interest.
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The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
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If vital interests under duress can be preserved by peaceful means, negotiations will find that out. If our adversary will accept nothing-less than a concession of our rights, negotiations will find that out. And if negotiations are to take place, this nation cannot abdicate to its adversaries the task of choosing the forum and the framework and the time.
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Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
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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.
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Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.
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While we shall never weary in the defense of freedom, neither shall we ever abandon the pursuit of peace.
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This is not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection, and I certainly will come back in the springtime
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But complacency or self-congratulation can imperil our security as much as the weapons of tyranny. A moment of pause is not a promise of peace.
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I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
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As the idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the domestic tranquility.
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I'm an idealist without illusions.
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When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.
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I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
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We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.
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Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
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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.
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Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
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As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats. And a partnership, by definition, serves both partners, without domination or unfair advantage. Together we have been partners in adversity - let us also be partners in prosperity.
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Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.