Top 500 John F. Kennedy Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Be aware of danger-but recognize the opportunity.”

— John F. Kennedy

252. “Life’s not fair but not always to your disadvantage.”

— John F. Kennedy

253. “A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.”

— John F. Kennedy

254. “Israel was not created in order to disappear. Israel will endure and flourish.”

— John F. Kennedy

255. “There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow.”

— John F. Kennedy

256. “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”

— John F. Kennedy

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

— John F. Kennedy

258. “We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.”

— John F. Kennedy

259. “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”

— John F. Kennedy

260. “We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age; the search for freedom and self fulfillment of man.”

— John F. Kennedy

261. “The very word Secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society.”

— John F. Kennedy

262. “There is too little public recognition of how much we all depend upon farmers as stewards of our soil, water and wildlife resources.”

— John F. Kennedy

263. “The Civil Rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He’s helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln.”

— John F. Kennedy

264. “If I don’t have a woman every three days or so I get a terrible headache.”

— John F. Kennedy

265. “The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.”

— John F. Kennedy

266. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

268. “Whatever one’s religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.”

— John F. Kennedy

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

— John F. Kennedy

270. “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

271. “Only in the case of the Negro has the melting pot failed to bring a minority into the full stream of American life.”

— John F. Kennedy

272. “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

273. “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

274. “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

275. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

278. “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

279. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

281. “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

282. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

284. “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

285. “Democracy is the superior form of government, because it is based on a respect for man as a reasonable being.”

— John F. Kennedy

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

— John F. Kennedy

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

— John F. Kennedy

288. “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

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

— John F. Kennedy

290. “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

291. “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

292. “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

293. “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

294. “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

295. “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

296. “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

297. “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

298. “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

299. “The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”

— John F. Kennedy

300. “There are many people in the world who really don’t understand-or say they don’t-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!”

— John F. Kennedy