John F. Kennedy Quotes About Quality

• A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.

  John F. Kennedy

  Leadership, Courage, Patriotic

• 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.

  John F. Kennedy

  Music, Art, Civilization

• Persons are judged to be great because of the positive qualities they possess, not because of the absence of faults.

  John F. Kennedy

  Quality, Faults, Affirmation

• The basis of self-government and freedom requires the development of character and self-restraint and perseverance and the long view. And these are qualities which require many years of training and education.

  John F. Kennedy

  Perseverance, Freedom, Character

  Address at the University of Washington's 100th Anniversary Program, November 16, 1961.

• The success of this Government, and thus the success of our Nation, depends in the last analysis upon the quality.of our career services. The legislation enacted by the Congress, as well as the decisions made by me and by the department and agency heads, must all be implemented by the career men and women in the Federal service. In foreign affairs, national defense, science and technology, and a host of other fields, they face problems of unprecedented importance and perplexity. We are all dependent on their sense of loyalty and responsibility as well as their competence and energy.

  John F. Kennedy

  Loyalty, Responsibility, Technology

  "Special Message to the Congress on Federal Pay Reform". February 20, 1962.

• And so it is that I carry with me from this State to that high and lonely office to which I now succeed more than fond memories and fast friendships. The enduring qualities of Massachusetts - the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant - will not be and could not be forgotten in the Nations Executive Mansion. They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, my hopes for the future.

  John F. Kennedy

  Life, Lonely, Memories

  Address to the Massachusetts legislature on January 09, 1961. "Congressional Record", Volume 107, Appendix, p. A169, January 10, 1961.

• 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

  Jobs, Writing, Media

• No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the President and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Moving, Heart

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.446, Best Books on

• Self-government requires qualities of self-denial and restraint.

  John F. Kennedy

  Government, Self, Democracy

• Courage--judgment--integrity--dedication--these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State....And these are the qualities which, with God's help, this son of Massachusetts hopes will characterize our government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead.

  John F. Kennedy

  Integrity, Lying, Son

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

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