Inspiring Quotes by John F. Kennedy
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Neither smiles nor frowns, neither good intentions nor harsh words, are a substitute for strength.

United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do-for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and
split asunder.

For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

For if Freedom and Communism were to compete for mans allegiance in a world at peace, I would look to the future with ever increasing confidence.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.

I was never accepted into certain parts of New England society because my grandfather was an Irish barkeep.

The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises, it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier.

I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk.

The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.

Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it.

There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.... I'm the responsible officer of the Government.

Peace does not rest in charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of the people.

The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution of those determined to be free.

If I don't have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.

For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived.

The stories of past courage... can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.

There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.

If you look throughout human history ... the central epiphany of every religious tradition always occurs in the wilderness.

Sailing has given me some of the most pleasant and exciting moments of my life. It also has taught me something of the courage, resourcefulness, and strength of men who sail the seas in ships.

I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.

But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone.

The great free nations of the world must take control of our monetary problems if these problems are not to take control of us.

The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.

Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive.

When I was growing up I had three wishes. I wanted to be a Lindbergh-type hero, learn Chinese, and become a member of The Algonquin Round Table.

Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgement.

Compromise does not mean cowardice.

Will Rogers once said it is not the original investment in a Congressman that counts; it is the upkeep.

The function and responsibility of the President is to set before the American people the unfinished business, the things we must do if we are going to succeed as a nation.

Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

I hear it said that West Berlin is militarily untenable -- and so was Bastogne, and so, in fact, was Stalingrad. Any danger spot is tenable if men -- brave men -- will make it so.

Any danger spot is tenable if men, brave men, will make it so.

The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation.

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.

A technological revolution on the farm has led to an output explosion -- but we have not yet learned to harness that explosion usefully, while protecting our farmers' right to full parity income.

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

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

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.

For a subject worked and reworked so often in novels, motion pictures, and television, American Indians remain probably the least understood and most misunderstood Americans of us all.

I am the one person who can truthfully say, I got my job through the New York Times.

Our nation is founded on the principal that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.

At the start of 2005 the idea of downloading a song to a mobile phone was an idea, by the end of the year it was a reality.

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

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.

If we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will undermine our capcity for thought, for work, and for use of those skills vital to an expanding and complex America.

No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish -- where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.