47 Interesting Facts About John F. Kennedy That you Should Know

Last updated on February 7th, 2023

John F Kennedy quotes

1. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

2. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

3. “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

4. “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

5. “Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”

6. “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”

7. “History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

8. “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”

9. “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

10. “Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.”

11. “A child miseducated is a child lost.”

12. “I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.”

13. “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

14. “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.”

15. “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.”

16. “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

17. “We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.”

18. “Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”

19. “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.”

20. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

21. “Life is never easy. There is work to be done and obligations to be met—obligations to truth, to justice, and to liberty.”

22. “Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

23. “Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”

24. “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”

25. “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

26. “Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.”

27. “Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.”

28. “In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.”

29. “The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate… we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.”

30. “For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”

31. “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.”

32. “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

33. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

34. “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”

35. “Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”

36. “Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger men.”

37. “The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”

38. “Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.”

39. “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.”

40. “I’m an idealist without illusions.”

41. “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.”

42. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”

43. “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

44. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

45. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

46. “Libraries should be open to all – except the censor.”

47. “If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”

48. “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

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

50. “The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”

51. “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

52. “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.”

53. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that 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.”

54. “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

55. “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.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy – Quick facts and stats