The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity.
Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.
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.
The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.
The pay is good and I can walk to work.
I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.
Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.
I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.
The rising tide lifts all the boats.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy is not perfect.
We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.
Politics is a jungle-torn between doing the right thing and staying in office.
If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.