John F. Kennedy Inspirational Quotations

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

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

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.

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

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

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.

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

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.

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

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

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

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.

I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

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

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.

A journey to Thousand miles begins with one step

In that case, there is no time to lose. Plant it this afternoon!

The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises, it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.

I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world.

I believe in an America where the rights that I have described are enjoyed by all, regardless of their race or their creed or their national origin - where every citizen is free to think and speak as he pleases and write and worship as he pleases - and where every citizen is free to vote as he pleases, without instructions from anyone, his employer, the union leader or his clergyman.

There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.... I'm the responsible officer of the Government.

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.

And only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant, and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity.

In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. "Pursue peace," the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

I see little more important to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier.

If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.

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.

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.

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.

My call is not to those who believe they belong to the past. My call is to those who believe in the future.

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

To those whom much is given, much is expected.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.