“Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.[News conference, April 21 1961]”

“Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind.[Address before the United Nations, September 25 1961]”

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]”

“Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.Inaugural Adress, January 20, 1961”

“And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.”

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

“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.”