Top 500 John F. Kennedy Quotes (2023 Update)
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251. “The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.”

— John F. Kennedy

252. “There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.”

— John F. Kennedy

253. “It takes two to make peace.”

— John F. Kennedy

254. “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

— John F. Kennedy

255. “The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.”

— John F. Kennedy

256. “You never know what’s hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.”

— John F. Kennedy

257. “If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred.”

— John F. Kennedy

258. “Word to the Nation: Guard zealously your right to serve in the Armed Forces, for without them, there will be no other rights to guard.”

— John F. Kennedy

259. “Wherever there is smoke there is a good smoke machine.”

— John F. Kennedy

260. “For one true measure of a nation is its success in fulfilling the promise of a better life for each of its members. Let this be the measure of our nation.”

— John F. Kennedy

261. “No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition and both are necessary.”

— John F. Kennedy

262. “To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place, and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all.”

— John F. Kennedy

263. “So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.”

— John F. Kennedy

264. “Political action is the highest responsibility of a citizen.”

— John F. Kennedy

265. “Remember that our nation’s first great leaders were also our first great scholars.”

— John F. Kennedy

266. “The efforts of governments alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must choose and the people must help themselves.”

— John F. Kennedy

267. “Lofty words cannot construct an alliance or maintain it; only concrete deeds can do that.”

— John F. Kennedy

268. “In our democracy every young person should have an equal opportunity to obtain a higher education, regardless of his station in life or financial means.”

— John F. Kennedy

269. “Happiness is the full use of one’s talents along lines of excellence.”

— John F. Kennedy

270. “If the self-discipline of the free cannot match the iron discipline of the mailed fist, in economic, political, scientific, and all the other kinds of struggles, as well as the military, then the peril to freedom will continue to rise.”

— John F. Kennedy

271. “The deadly arms race, and the huge resources it absorbs, have too long overshadowed all else we must do. We must prevent that arms race from spreading to new nations, to new nuclear powers and to the reaches of outer space.”

— John F. Kennedy

272. “The Federal Government is the people and the budget is a reflection of their need.”

— John F. Kennedy

273. “To further the appreciation of culture among all the people, to increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of artthis is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.”

— John F. Kennedy

274. “My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on.”

— John F. Kennedy

275. “An artist’s working life is marked by intensive application and intense discipline.”

— John F. Kennedy

276. “If I had to live my life over again, I would have a different father, a different wife and a different religion.”

— John F. Kennedy

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

— John F. Kennedy

278. “A nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future.”

— John F. Kennedy

279. “I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas.”

— John F. Kennedy

280. “Every dollar released from taxation that is spared or invested will help create a new job and a new salary.”

— John F. Kennedy

281. “I have said that control of arms is a mission that we undertake particularly for our children and our grandchildren and that they have no lobby in Washington.”

— John F. Kennedy

282. “Where nature makes natural allies of us all, we can demonstrate that beneficial relations are possible even with those with whom we most deeply disagree-and this must someday be the basis of world peace and world law.”

— John F. Kennedy

283. “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

284. “The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.”

— John F. Kennedy

285. “I want every American to be free to stand up for his rights, even if sometimes he has to sit down for them.”

— John F. Kennedy

286. “I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as a self-governing people to hear everything relevant.”

— John F. Kennedy

287. “It is in the American tradition to stand up for one’s rights – even if the new way to stand up for one’s rights is to sit down.”

— John F. Kennedy

288. “Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”

— John F. Kennedy

289. “And a revolution of automation finds machines replacing men in the mines and mills of America, without replacing their incomes or their training or their needs to pay the family doctor, grocer and landlord.”

— John F. Kennedy

290. “The basis of self-government and freedom requires the development of character and self-restraint and perseverance and the long view. And these are qualities which require many years of training and education.”

— John F. Kennedy

291. “All my life Ive known better than to depend on the experts. How could I have been so stupid, to let them go ahead?”

— John F. Kennedy

292. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

294. “America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.”

— John F. Kennedy

295. “I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.”

— John F. Kennedy

296. “War and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.”

— John F. Kennedy

297. “Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.”

— John F. Kennedy

298. “Nor problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

— John F. Kennedy

299. “Struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties.”

— John F. Kennedy

300. “Wealth is the means, and people are the ends. All our material riches will avail us little if we do not use them to expand the opportunities of our people.”

— John F. Kennedy