John F. Kennedy Quotes About History

• My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Country

  Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961

• 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.

  John F. Kennedy

  Patriotic, Past, Rushing

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

  John F. Kennedy

  Peace, Differences, Diversity

  1963 Speech, American University, Washington DC, 10 Jun.

• Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

  John F. Kennedy

  Change, Destiny, History

• 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.

  John F. Kennedy

  Sorry, Apology, Technology

  "Inclusive Growth". Book by Pratheek Praveen Kumar, p. 18,

• All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'

  John F. Kennedy

  Patriotic, Pride, Men

  Remarks in Rudolf Wilde Platz,West Berlin, Germany, 26 June 1963.

• If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.

  John F. Kennedy

  History, Our Actions, Made

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.19, Best Books on

• 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

  Freedom, Responsibility, Long

  Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961

• It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

  John F. Kennedy

  Peace, War, History

  Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (1965)

• We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

  John F. Kennedy

  Life, History, Permit

  Speech to the Forth Worth Chamber of Commerce, delivered 22 November 1963

• Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wall, Ideas, Long

  News Conference, www.jfklibrary.org. June 28, 1961.

• If a beach-head of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

  John F. Kennedy

  Beach, Strong, Law

  Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961

• History will not judge our endeavors--and a government cannot be selected--merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.

  John F. Kennedy

  Loyalty, Party, Government

  Address to a Joint Convention of the General Court of, delivered 9 January 1961

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