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To quote John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 11/02/2009 - 14:16
 
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
 
Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.
 
For of those to whom much is given, much is required.
 
One person can make a difference and every person should try.
 
All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.
 
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat  is an orphan.
 
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
 
Let us never negotiate out of fear.  But let us never fear to negotiate.
 
The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.
 
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
 
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
 
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.
 
We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient; that we are only 6 percent of the world's population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity; and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.
 
We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad.
 
Those who make peaceful revolutions impossible will make violent revolutions inevitable.
 
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
 
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
 
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
 
If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself.  If we are weak, words will be of no help.
 
 The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation.
 
The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
 
 I'm an idealist without illusions.
 
On this earth God's work is in our hands.
 
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
 
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
 
We are not against any man-or any nation-or any system-except as it is hostile to freedom.
 
 In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.  I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
 
We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
 
There is, in addition to a courage with which men die, a courage by which men must live. 
 
In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.
 
Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.
 
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
 
The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter.
 
Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.
 
 The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
 
Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war,  corruption, or both.
 
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
 
As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats.
 
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.
 
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.
  For 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.
 
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory.
 
Any system of government will work when everything is going well.  It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive.
 
So let us begin anew - remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.
 
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.
 
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
 
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
 
Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.
 
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
 
Let us not seek the Republican  answer or the Democratic  answer, but the right answer.
 
Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.  Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
 
A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.
 
There is always inequity in life.  Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco.  It’s very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality.  Life is unfair.
 
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.
 
 An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.
 
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot.  Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
 
There is nothing, I think, more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to watch their school play basketball every Saturday and regard that as their week's exercise.
 
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.
 
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.  Ideas have endurance without death.
 
 If not us, who?  If not now, when?
 

 

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