John F. Kennedy Quotes About Skins

• We have all seen these circus elephants complete with tusks, ivory in their head and thick skins, who move around the circus ring and grab the tail of the elephant ahead of them.

  John F. Kennedy

  Moving, Elephants, Ivory

  Speech at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California, on November 02, 1960. "John F. Kennedy Quotations: Profiles in Courage Quotations", www.jfklibrary.org.

• And lastly, Chairman Khrushchev has compared the United States to a worn-out runner living on its past performance, and stated that the Soviet Union would out-produce the United States by 1970. Without wishing to trade hyperbole with the Chairman, I do suggest that he reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he his caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wall, Past, Ideas

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

• But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of new nations by old, of dark skins by light, or the subjugation of the poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony,
  and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever
  their continent, their class, their color.

  John F. Kennedy

  Powerful, Mean, Dark

  Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

• 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 an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

  John F. Kennedy

  Children, School, Dark

  Civil Rights Address, delivered 11 June 1963

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