Top 180 John F. Kerry Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Gender based violence anywhere is a threat to peace and security everywhere.”

— John F. Kerry

2. “The hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are yet to come.”

— John F. Kerry

3. “Climate change is real. The science is compelling. And the longer we wait, the harder the problem will be to solve.”

— John F. Kerry

4. “Values spoken without actions taken are merely slogans.”

— John F. Kerry

5. “I want to fully fund education, No Child Left Behind, special-needs education. And that’s how we’re going to be more competitive, by making sure our kids are graduating from school and college.”

— John F. Kerry

6. “War on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation.”

— John F. Kerry

7. “An old American patriot described today’s situation very well. As America fought for its independence, Benjamin Franklin said, “we must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.””

— John F. Kerry

8. “You can’t play sports without losing sometimes and, in losing, you learn something about grace and how to act under pressure.”

— John F. Kerry

9. “The Future Belongs to Freedom, Not to Fear.”

— John F. Kerry

10. “I believe America’s best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.”

— John F. Kerry

11. “I don’t want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God’s side.”

— John F. Kerry

12. “Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They’re about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for.”

— John F. Kerry

13. “We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia’s behavior.”

— John F. Kerry

14. “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

— John F. Kerry

15. “It’s one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and you can be wrong.”

— John F. Kerry

16. “I’m a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.”

— John F. Kerry

17. “And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.”

— John F. Kerry

18. “I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.”

— John F. Kerry

19. “It’s pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage. And Democrats have been doing it for years.”

— John F. Kerry

20. “And now that the Greatest Generation is getting older, I think it is the responsibility of all Americans to make sure we do our part for America’s seniors. You have earned the best of America – and we need to make sure you get the protection and health care you deserve.”

— John F. Kerry

21. “I know something about killing. I don’t like killing. And I don’t think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing. Now, that’s just a personal belief that I have.”

— John F. Kerry

22. “Our troops are terrorizing women and children in the dark of night in Iraq.”

— John F. Kerry

23. “NAFTA recognizes the reality of today’s economy – globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.”

— John F. Kerry

24. “Folks, Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska. Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by watching ‘Rocky IV.’”

— John F. Kerry

25. “If we can’t have a serious conversation without politicizing it on cable TV and making it a scoring point for one day, we’re in trouble.”

— John F. Kerry

26. “There is no greater breach of the public trust than knowingly misleading the country into war. In a democracy, we simply cannot tolerate the abuse of this trust by the government.”

— John F. Kerry

27. “American can do better, and help is on the way.”

— John F. Kerry

28. “I’m fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there’s a lot of poetry in it. There’s a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you’d better listen to it pretty carefully, ’cause it’s important.”

— John F. Kerry

29. “Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.”

— John F. Kerry

30. “Middle class Americans don’t ask for special favors, they just want basic fairness, and a President who fights for that ideal.”

— John F. Kerry

31. “I know something about aircraft carriers for real.”

— John F. Kerry

32. “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

— John F. Kerry

33. “There are issues of war and peace. And then, there are issues of life and death like this one that are no less morally compelling than war itself.”

— John F. Kerry

34. “For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans.”

— John F. Kerry

35. “I’m not insensitive to the jobs. I’m desperately concerned about those jobs. But you don’t fix them by pandering to people and telling them you’re going to shut the door. You have to grow jobs.”

— John F. Kerry

36. “I commanded a naval gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta. Then when I came home after two tours of duty, I decided that the same sense of service demanded something more of me.”

— John F. Kerry

37. “The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country, not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans.”

— John F. Kerry

38. “My definition of patriotism is to defend your country with the truth, no matter the consequences.”

— John F. Kerry

39. “We must retool our nation to prepare for the challenge we already face to maintain our position in the global economy. And this much is certain: America will not have national security without economic security.”

— John F. Kerry

40. “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.”

— John F. Kerry

41. “Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.”

— John F. Kerry

42. “The consequences of a crime should not be out of proportion to the crime itself.”

— John F. Kerry

43. “What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.”

— John F. Kerry

44. “The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family.”

— John F. Kerry

45. “Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it’s too often the art of the probable – tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination.”

— John F. Kerry

46. “I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you’ll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest.”

— John F. Kerry

47. “The big hang-up was George Bush wanted to get life lines, you know, so he could call somebody.”

— John F. Kerry

48. “I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?”

— John F. Kerry

49. “As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.”

— John F. Kerry

50. “Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat’s transformation from outlaw to statesman.”

— John F. Kerry