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I Ask Particularly That Those Of You Who Are Now In School Will Prepare Yourselves To Bear The Burden Of Leadership Over The Next 40 Years Here In The United States, And Make Sure That The United States - Which I Believe Almost Alone Has Maintained Watch And Ward For Freedom - That The United States Meet Its Responsibility. That Is A Wonderful Challenge For Us As A People.

-John F. Kennedy

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I Ask Particularly That

John F. Kennedy

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I Ask Particularly That Those Of You Who Are Now In School Will Prepare Yourselves To Bear The Burden Of Leadership Over The Next 40 Years Here In The United States, And Make Sure That The United States - Which I Believe Almost Alone Has Maintained Watch And Ward For Freedom - That The United States Meet Its Responsibility. That Is A Wonderful Challenge For Us As A People.

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The Civil Rights Movement Should Thank God For Bull Connor. He's Helped It As Much As Abraham Lincoln.

If My Church Attempted To Influence Me In A Way Which Was Improper Or Which Affected Adversely My Responsibilities As A Public Servant Sworn To Uphold The Constitution, Then I Would Reply To Them That This Was An Improper Action On Their Part. It Was One To Which I Could Not Subscribe.

Just As I Went Into Politics Because Joe Died, If Anything Happened To Me Tomorrow, My Brother Bobby Would Run For My Seat In The Senate. And If Bobby Died, Teddy Would Take Over For Him.

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We Must Live Our Lives In Such A Way That Our Children, And Their Children After Them, Will Form A Natural And Lasting Commitment To The Vigorous Life. Only In This Way Can We Be Assured That The Spirit And Strength Of America Will Be Constantly Replenished.

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That Is The Kind Of America In Which I Believe. And It Represents The Kind Of Presidency In Which I Believe - A Great Office That Must Neither Be Humbled By Making It The Instrument Of Any One Religious Group Nor Tarnished By Arbitrarily Withholding Its Occupancy From The Members Of Any One Religious Group. 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.

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Nuclear Missiles

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Moral Courage Is More A Rare Commodity Than Bravery In A Battle Or Great Intelligence.

Let Us Not Seek The Republican Answer Or The Democratic Answer, But The Right Answer. Let Us Not Seek To Fix The Blame For The Past. Let Us Accept Our Own Responsibility For The Future.

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The Federal Government Is The People And The Budget Is A Reflection Of Their Need.

Once You Say You're Going To Settle For Second, That's What Happens To You In Life.

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If Anyone Is Crazy Enough To Want To Kill A President Of The United States, He Can Do It. All He Must Be Prepared To Do Is Give His Life For The President's.

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A Nation Which Has Forgotten The Quality Of Courage Which In The Past Has Been Brought To Public Life Is Not As Likely To Insist Upon Or Regard That Quality In Its Chosen Leaders Today - And In Fact We Have Forgotten.

Wherever There Is Smoke There Is A Good Smoke Machine.

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For In A Government Of Laws And Not Of Men, No Man, However Prominent Or Powerful, And No Mob However Unruly Or Boisterous, Is Entitled To Defy A Court Of Law. If This Country Should Ever Reach The Point Where Any Man Or Group Of Men By Force Or Threat Of Force Could Long Defy The Commands Of Our Court And Our Constitution, Then No Law Would Stand Free From Doubt, No Judge Would Be Sure Of His Writ, And No Citizen Would Be Safe From His Neighbors.

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I Must Say That Though Other Days May Not Be So Bright, As We Look Toward The Future, That The Brightest Days Will Continue To Be Those We Spent With You Here In Ireland.

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I Think It Is Appropriate That We Pay Tribute To This Great Constitutional Principle Which Is Enshrined In The First Amendment Of The Constitution: The Principle Of Religious Independence, Of Religious Liberty, Of Religious Freedom.

Life In Freedom Is Not Easy, And Democracy Is Not Perfect.

We Shall Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden, Meet Any Hardship, Support Any Friend, Oppose Any Foe To Assure The Survival And The Success Of Liberty... All This Will Not Be Finished In The First 100 Days. Nor Will It Be Finished In The First 1000 Days, Nor In The Life Of This Administration, Nor Even Perhaps In Our Lifetime On This Planet. But Let Us Begin... And So, My Fellow Americans: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You - Ask What You Can Do For Your Country.

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Mankind Must Put An End To War Before War Puts An End To Mankind.

War Will Exist Until That Distant Day When The Conscientious Objector Enjoys The Same Reputation And Prestige That The Warrior Does Today.

To Each Of Us Is Entrusted The Heavy Responsibility Of Guiding The Affairs Of A Democratic Nation Founded On Christian Ideals.

Let Both Sides Seek To Invoke The Wonders Of Science Instead Of Its Terrors. Together Let Us Explore The Stars, Conquer The Deserts, Eradicate Disease, Tap The Ocean Depths, And Encourage The Arts And Commerce.

As Far As The Job Of President Goes, Its Rewarding And I've Given Before This Group The Definition Of Happiness For The Greeks. I'll Define It Again: The Full Use Of Your Powers Along Lines Of Excellence. I Find, Therefore, That The Presidency Provides Some Happiness.

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.

If There Is One Path Above All Others To War, It Is The Path Of Weakness And Disunity.

There Are Three Things In Life Which Are Real: God, Human Folly And Laughter. Since The First Two Are Beyond Our Comprehension, We Must Do What We Can With The Third.

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. Every President Has Taken Comfort And Courage When Toldthat The Lord 'will Be With Thee. He Will Not Fail Thee Nor Forsake Thee. Fear Not-neither Be Thou Dismayed.' Each Of Our Presidents In His Own Way Has Placed A Special Trust In God. Those Who Were Strongest Intellectually Were Also Strongest Spiritually.

Art Establishes The Basic Human Truths Which Must Serve As The Touchstone Of Our Judgement.

Above All, We Are Coming To Understand That The Arts Incarnate The Creativity Of A Free People. When The Creative Impulse Cannot Flourish, When It Cannot Freely Select Its Methods And Objects, When It Is Deprived Of Spontaneity, Then Society Severs The Root Of Art.

Here On Earth, God's Work Must Surely Be Our Own.

Each Success Brings With It The Potential Of Failure And Each Failure Brings With It The Potential Of Success.

There Is No City In The United States In Which I Can Get A Warmer Welcome And Fewer Votes Than Columbia, Ohio.

I Am Sorry To Say That There Is Too Much Point To The Wisecrack That Life Is Extinct On Other Planets Because Their Scientists Were More Advanced Than Ours.

All My Life Ive Known Better Than To Depend On The Experts. How Could I Have Been So Stupid, To Let Them Go Ahead?

We Are Opposed Around The World By A Monolithic And Ruthless Conspiracy That Relies Primarily On Covert Means For Expanding Its Sphere Of Influence — On Infiltration Instead Of Invasion, On Subversion Instead Of Elections, On Intimidation Instead Of Free Choice, On Guerrillas By Night Instead Of Armies By Day

When My Office Would Require Me To Either Violate My Conscience Or Violate The National Interest, Then I Would Resign The Office; And I Hope Any Conscientious Public Servant Would Do The Same.

Mr. Nixon Has, In The Last Seven Days, Called Me An Economic Ignoramus, A Pied Piper, And All The Rest. I've Just Confined Myself To Calling Him A Republican. But He Says That Is Getting Low.

We Cannot Be Satisfied With Things As They Are. We Cannot Be Satisfied To Drift, To Rest On Our Oars, To Glide Over A Sea Whose Depths Are Shaken By Subterranean Upheavals.

There Are Only Two Realities In Life: Death And Laughter. We Can Do Nothing To Change The Former, So We Might As Well Do All We Can To Save The Latter.

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.

While They Came From A Variety Of Religious Backgrounds And Held A Wide Variety Of Religious Beliefs, Each Of Our Presidents In His Own Way Has Placed A Special Trust In God.

Failure Has No Friends.

[war] Can No Longer Be Of Concern To Great Powers Alone.

We Shall Be Judged More By What We Do At Home Than What We Preach Abroad.

My Call Is Not To Those Who Believe They Belong To The Past. My Call Is To Those Who Believe In The Future.

The Great Enemy Of The Truth Is Very Often Not The Lie, Deliberate, Contrived And Dishonest, But The Myth, Persistent, Persuasive And Unrealistic.

It Is An Unfortunate Fact That We Can Secure Peace Only By Preparing For War.

As Science, Of Necessity, Becomes More Involved With Itself, So Also, Of Necessity, It Becomes More International. I Am Impressed To Know That Of The 670 Members Of This Academy

Forgive Your Enemies, But Never Forget Their Names.

There's An Old Saying That Victory Has A Hundred Fathers And Defeat Is An Orphan.... I'm The Responsible Officer Of The Government.

A Man May Die, Nations May Rise And Fall, But An Idea Lives On.

I See Little More Important To The Future Of Our Country And Our Civilization Than The Full Recognition Of The Place Of The Artist.

We've Spent Half The Expenditures, We've Wrecked Our Budget On All These Other Domestic Programs, And The Only Justification For It, In My Opinion, To Do It In The Pell-mell Fashion Is Because We Hope To Beat Them And Demonstrate That Starting Behind Them, As We Did By A Couple Of Years, By God, We Passed Them. I Think It Would Be A Helluva Thing For Us.

First I Believe That This Nation Should Commit Itself To Achieving The Goal, Before This Decade Is Out, Of Landing A Man On The Moon.

We Shall Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden, To Assure The Survival And The Success Of Liberty.

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.

The Rising Tide Lifts All The Boats.

O God, Thy Sea Is So Great And My Boat Is So Small.

Be Aware Of Danger-but Recognize The Opportunity

We Must Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Or They Will Abolish Us.

Nuclear Weapons

Just Because We Cannot See Clearly Te End Of The Road, That Is No Reason For Not Setting Out On The Essential Journey.

The Great Enemy Of Truth Is Very Often Not The Lie--deliberate, Contrived And Dishonest--but The Myth--persistent, Persuasive And Unrealistic. Too Often We Hold Fast To The Cliches Of Our Forebears. We Subject All Facts To A Prefabricated Set Of Interpretations. We Enjoy The Comfort Of Opinion Without The Discomfort Of Thought.

The Credit Of Success Is Claimed By All, While A Disaster Is Attributed To One Alone.

Food Is Strength, And Food Is Peace, And Food Is Freedom, And Food Is A Helping Hand To People Around The World Whose Good Will And Friendship We Want.

Ask Not What Your Community Can Do For You; Ask What Your Community Can Not Do For Anyone Else.

Aeschylus And Plato Are Remembered Today Long After The Triumphs Of Imperial Athens Are Gone. Dante Outlived The Ambitions Of Thirteenth Century Florence. Goethe Stands Serenely Above The Politics Of Germany, And I Am Certain That After The Dust Of Centuries Has Passed Over Cities, We Too Will Be Remembered Not For Victories Or Defeats In Battle Or In Politics, But For Our Contribution To The Human Spirit.

We Don't Want To Be Like The Leader In The French Revolution Who Said There Go My People, I Must Find Out Where They Are Going So I Can Lead Them.

A Nation Reveals Itself Not Only By The Men It Produces But Also By The Men It Honors, The Men It Remembers.

The Basis Of Effective Government Is Public Confidence.

Ethical Standards

A Boy Spends His Time Finding A Girl To Sleep With. A Real Man Spends His Time Looking For The One Worth Waking Up To.

Our Privileges Can Be No Greater Than Our Obligations. The Protection Of Our Rights Can Endure No Longer Than The Performance Of Our Responsibilities.

Malthus Argued A Century And A Half Ago That Man, By Using Up All His Available Resources, Would Forever Press On The Limits Of Subsistence, Thus Condemning Humanity To An Indefinite Future Of Misery And Poverty. We Can Now Begin To Hope And, I Believe, Know That Malthus Was Expressing Not A Law Of Nature, But Merely The Limitation Then Of Scientific And Social Wisdom. The Truth Or Falsity Of His Prediction Will Depend Now, With The Tools We Have, On Our Own Actions, Now And In The Years To Come.

Nothing Compares To The Simple Pleasure Of A Bike Ride.

Riding Your Bike

A Great Change Is At Hand, And Our Task, Our Obligation, Is To Make That Revolution, That Change, Peaceful And Constructive For All.

There's An Old Saying. Never Send A Boy To Do A Man's Job, Send A Lady.

This Knowledge, The Knowledge That The Physical Well-being Of The Citizen Is An Important Foundation For All Of The Activities Of The Nation, Is As Old As Western Civilization Itself.

Those Whom Nature Hath So Joined Together, Let No Man Put Asunder

The Great Battleground For The Defense And Expansion Of Freedom Today Is The Whole Southern Half Of The Globe... The Lands Of The Rising Peoples. Their Revolution Is The Greatest In Human History. They Seek An End To Injustice, Tyranny And Exploitation. More Than An End, They Seek A Beginning.

I Would Not Look With Favor Upon A President Working To Subvert The First Amendment's Guarantees Of Religious Liberty ... Neither Do I Look With Favor Upon Those Who Would Work To Subvert Article Vi Of The Constitution By Requiring A Religious Test - Even By Indirection.

If A Free Society Cannot Help The Many Who Are Poor, It Cannot Save The Few Who Are Rich.

Show Me A Man With A Great Golf Game, And I’ll Show You A Man Who Has Been Neglecting Something.

Irrational Barriers And Ancient Prejudices Fall Quickly When The Question Of Survival Itself Is At Stake.

It's Only When They Join Together In A Forward Movement That This Country Moves Ahead.

The Basis Of Effective Government Is Public Confidence, And That Confidence Is Endangered When Ethical Standards Falter Or Appear To Falter.

Ethical Standards

All Over The World, Particularly In The Newer Nations, Young Men Are Coming To Power--men Who Are Not Bound By The Traditions Of The Past--men Who Are Not Blinded By The Old Fears And Hates And Rivalries-- Young Men Who Can Cast Off The Old Slogans And Delusions And Suspicions.

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.

I Believe The American People Are More Concerned With A Man's Views And Abilities Than With The Church To Which He Belongs. I Believe The Founding Fathers Meant It When They Provided In Article Vi Of The Constitution That There Should Be No Religious Test For Public Office. And I Believe That The American People Mean To Adhere To Those Principles Today.

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.

The Voters Selected Us, In Short, Because They Had Confidence In Our Judgement And Our Ability To Exercise That Judgement From A Position Where We Could Determine What Were Their Own Best Interest, As A Part Of The Nation's Interest.

We Are Tied To The Ocean. And When We Go Back To The Sea, Whether It Is To Sail Or To Watch - We Are Going Back From Whence We Came.

The United States Has To Move Very Fast To Even Stand Still.

The Ancient Greek Definition Of Happiness Was The Full Use Of Your Powers Along Lines Of Excellence.

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