John F. Kennedy
To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support - to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective - to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak - and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.Collection: Running
In addition, the United States Delegation will suggest a series of steps to improve the United Nations machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes... - for extending the rule of international law. For peace is not solely a matter of military or technical problems - it is primarily a problem of politics and people.Collection: Military
There is nothing, I think, more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to watch their school play basketball every Saturday and regard that as their weeks exercise.Collection: Basketball
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.Collection: Responsibility
Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the chief executive in every sense of the word.Collection: Views
We cannot reform the world.... Uncle Sugar is as dangerous a role for us to play as Uncle Shylock.Collection: Uncles
Where else, in a non-totalitarian country, but in the political profession is the individual expected to sacrifice all-including his own career-for the national good?Collection: Country
Few nations do more than the United States to assist their least fortunate citizens-to make certain that no child, no elderly or handicapped citizen, no family in any circumstances in any State, is left without the essential needs for a decent and healthy existence. In too few nations, I might add, are the people aware of the progressive strides this country has taken in demonstrating the humanitarian side of freedom. Our record is a proud one-and it sharply refutes those who accuse us of thinking only in the materialistic terms of cash registers and calculating machines.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Calling
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the Great Powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.Collection: War
Is this Nation stating it cannot afford to spend an additional $600 million to help the developing nations of the world become strong and free and independentan amount less than this countrys annual outlay for lipstick, face cream, and chewing gum?Collection: Strong
Lobbyists are in many cases expert technicians and capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable fashion. They engage in personal discussions with Members of Congress in which they can explain in detail the reasons for positions they advocate. Because our congressional representation is based on geographical boundaries, the lobbyists who speak for the various economic, commercial, and other functional interests of this country serve a very useful purpose and have assumed an important role in the legislative process.Collection: Country
Dont teach my boy poetry, an English mother recently wrote the Provost of Harrow. Dont teach my boy poetry; he is going to stand for Parliament. Well, perhaps she was rightbut if more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place to live on this Commencement Day of 1956.Collection: Mother
All of us in the Senate live in an iron lung-the iron lung of politics, and it is no easy task to emerge from that rarified atmosphere in order to breathe the same fresh air our constituents breathe.Collection: Air
Now, as never before, hundreds of millions of men and women-who had formerly believed that stoic resignation in the face of hunger and disease and darkness was the best one could could do-have come alive with a new sense that the means are at hand with which to make for themselves a better life.Collection: Mean
We must recognize that every nation determines its policies in terms of its own interests.Collection: Interest
This increase in the life span and in the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacityand the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned. It is not enough for a great nation merely to have added new years to lifeour objective must also be to add new life to those years.Collection: Senior
An artist's working life is marked by intensive application and intense discipline.Collection: Artist
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.Collection: Sea
Our national conservation effort must include the complete spectrum of resources: air, water, and land; fuels, energy, and minerals; soils, forests, and forage; fish and wildlife. Together they make up the world of nature which surrounds us- of the American heritage.Collection: Air
The most powerful single force in the world today is neither Communism nor Capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile -- it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.Collection: Freedom
The most ideal approach to advance is the way of opportunity.Collection: Opportunity
I think when we talk about corporal punishment, and we have to think about our own children, and we are rather reluctant, it seems to me, to have other people administering punishment to our own children, because we are reluctant, it puts a special obligation on us to maintain order and to send children out from our homes who accept the idea of discipline. So I would not be for corporal punishment in the school, but I would be for very strong discipline at home so we don't place an unfair burden on our teachers.Collection: Teacher
Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors.Collection: Book
There is too little public recognition of how much we all depend upon farmers as stewards of our soil, water and wildlife resources.Collection: Water
Struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties.Collection: Struggle
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.Collection: Music
In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation.Collection: Artist
We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.Collection: 4th Of July
But I think it is also important that we pay tribute and acknowledge another great principle, and that is the principle of religious conviction. Religious freedom has no significance unless it is accompanied by conviction.Collection: Religious
Be aware of danger-but recognize the opportunityCollection: Opportunity
Race has no place in American life or law.Collection: Race
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.Collection: Religious
Third, and finally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society--but the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding. For whether he has ever studied history or current events, ethics or civics, the rules of a profession or the tools of a trade, he knows that only a respect for the law makes it possible for free men to dwell together in peace and progress.Collection: Responsibility
The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.Collection: Fall
I think the success of any school can be measured by the contribution the alumni make to our national life.Collection: School
Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy is not perfect.Collection: Freedom
Ask not what your community can do for you; ask what your community can not do for anyone else.Collection: Community
We can say with some assurance that, although children may be the victims of fate, they will not be the victims of our neglect.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Wise
Our goal is not victory of might but the vindication of right - not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.Collection: Freedom
Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.Collection: Party
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.Collection: Future
Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people.Collection: Art
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Plato
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.Collection: Education
What we seek to advance, what we seek to develop in all of our colleges and universities, are educated men and women who can bear the burdens of responsible citizenship, who can make judgments about life as it is, and as it must be, and encourage the people to make those decisions which can bring not only prosperity and security, but happiness to the people of the United Sates and those who depend upon it.Collection: College
In those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States. Many American investors properly made use of this deferral in the conduct of their foreign investment.Collection: Country