Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63,) known as JFK, was a Democratic-party political leader who served as the 35th president of the U.S. from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He is remembered as one of the most appealing and beloved political leaders of the twentieth century.

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a wealthy and politically prominent family, JFK was a national war hero during World War II. He served as a U.S. representative and a U.S. senator from Massachusetts before getting elected as the youngest and the first Catholic U.S. president.

JFK gained a widespread reputation as an advocate of civil rights, but Congress frequently blocked his planned legislation. In foreign affairs, he led America through the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the thirteen-day stand-off that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. He also increased military aid to South Vietnam in the Vietnam War and negotiated the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the USSR and the U.K.

Kennedy’s ambitious proposals for his country were cut short by his untimely assassination, which spawned decades of speculations of conspiracy, cover-up, and doctored film footage. His most admired legacies include the Peace Corps, the U.S. space program, and his advocacy for civil rights. He is also remembered for his inspiring speeches that encouraged humankind to challenge tyranny, racism, and the mysteries of outer space.

JFK is the author of Why England Slept (1940,) the Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage (1956,) and A Nation of Immigrants (1958.) His brothers Robert Kennedy and Edward “Ted” Kennedy also served as popular U.S. senators.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John F. Kennedy

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

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.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Satisfaction

When you have seven percent unemployed, you have ninety-three percent working.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Optimism

In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Effort

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Cities, City Life

Failure has no friends.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Success

A revolution is coming—a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough. But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
—John F. Kennedy

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government—he promised Dad he’d go straight.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Politics

To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, its an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to all of us.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Courage

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Patriotism, Freedom

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Truth, Thought, Reason

Everything changes but change itself. Everything flows and nothing remains the same…You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Creativity, Change

People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent… War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: The Military

A child miseducated is a child lost.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Children, Society

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Education

Politics is a jungle-torn between doing the right thing and staying in office.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Politics

World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor—it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Peace, Tolerance

You never know what’s hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.
—John F. Kennedy

There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Media

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Defeat

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Wilderness

I am the one person who can truthfully say, I got my job through the New York Times.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Politics

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Value of Time, Time, Spending time wisely, Time Management

It is our task in our time and in our generation to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Wildlife, Nature

In free society art is not a weapon. Artists are not engineers of the soul.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Artists, Arts, Art, Engineering

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 and returning him safely to the earth. I believe we should go to the moon. But there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful.
—John F. Kennedy

The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.
—John F. Kennedy

We are inclined to think that if we watch a football game or a baseball game, we have taken part in it.
—John F. Kennedy
Topics: Sports

So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.
—John F. Kennedy

With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth Gods work must truly be our own.
—John F. Kennedy

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