John F. Kennedy

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

Every man has a right to decide his own destiny. The only thing that I don't like is when they decide it for someone else.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.

Mothers may be called to make the ultimate sacrifice, but fathers are rarely called upon to give more than a good example.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.

I'm not a natural politician.

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.

The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

Life is unfair.

I'm not saying that we won't have to use nuclear weapons, but I'm saying that we should be very careful about how we use them.

Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

The United States is not a country you can come to and get rich quick. It's a country you come to and work hard and get rich slow.

I’m not trying to run a popularity contest. I’m trying to run a country.

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.

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

I am not the leader of the Democratic Party. I am the President of the United States. And that's what I'm going to be.