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We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
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A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
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We need men who can dream of things that never were.
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Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
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All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
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Conformity is the jailer of freedom, and the enemy of growth.
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We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.
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When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existance. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
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Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
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Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of our racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.
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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 success of liberty.
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Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain.
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And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
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Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
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Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.
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The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
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The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.
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The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
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For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.
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The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--delierate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth persistent, peruasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
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Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
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Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
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The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'
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