John F. Kennedy

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

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, we are going back from whence we came."

"Democracy may not be perfect, but it is better than any alternative."

"Regarding the use of force, a man may have strong disagreements with the judgment of the President."

"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for how we enriched the lives of our people."

"Things do not happen. Things are made to happen."

"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

"Too often we hold tight to the coping stones only when we recognize them as bulwarks against the darkness."

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

"The life of the arts, far from being an interruption of the normal life, is the very essence of the normal life itself."

"It is the nature of man to do the necessary, not the possible."

"Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan."

"The great tradition of parliamentary government has never been one of insisting on the dotting of every i or crossing of every t."

"Allow the President to be President."

"The New Frontier is not a set of promises – it is a set of challenges."

"We should always remember that the Cuban missile crisis was not a victory; it was a success in the sense that we got what we wanted."

"In the final analysis, the simple problems of human survival are the basic concern of government."

"We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate."

"The life of man is short; a few years hence, all will be forgotten."

"Some believe it is only great power that can hold great responsibility."

"To preserve his integrity a man sometimes has to do things that look quite foolish to others."

"There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."

"Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past – let us accept our own responsibility for the future."

"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."

"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word crisis. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other stands for opportunity."

"I have always felt that the first requirement in any position is that a man do well those things for which he is responsible."

"Only those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly."