By Adam Hart
Quick Introduction
John F. Kennedy (JFK), the 35th president of the United States (January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963), was born in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, and his father was a successful businessman. When he was elected, Kennedy was the youngest to be elected president at 43 years of age.
After graduating from law school with honors, Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, gaining the rank of lieutenant. Then, two years into his presidency, he was assassinated in Dallas at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine Corps employee fatally shot by Jack Ruby two days after.
Below are some of John F. Kennedy’s famous quotes.
1. My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
2. There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
3. Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
4. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
5. 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.
6. When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.
7. Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
8. 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 ensure the survival and the success of liberty.
9. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
10. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
11. Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
12. Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
16. Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
17. There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war, and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
18. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
19. Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
20. The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.