The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (51 page)

Speech to United Nations General Assembly, 25 Sept. 1961, in New York

Times 26 Sept. 1961, p. 14

The President described the dinner [for Nobel Prizewinners] as "probably

the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for

perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone."

New York Times 30 Apr. 1962, p. 1

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum". Today,

in the world of freedom the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein

Berliner"....All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.

And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, "Ich bin ein

Berliner".

Speech in West Berlin, 26 June 1963, in New York Times 27 June 1963, p. 12

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his

limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds

him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts,

poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must

serve as the touchstone of our judgement.

Speech at Amherst College, Mass., 26 Oct. 1963, in New York Times 27 Oct.

1963, p. 87

In free society art is not a weapon....Artists are not engineers of the

soul.

Speech at Amherst College, Mass., 26 Oct. 1963, in New York Times 27 Oct.

1963, p. 87

It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

Reply when asked how he became a war hero, in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. A

Thousand Days (1965) ch. 4

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier--the frontier of the 1960s--a

frontier of unknown opportunities and perils--a frontier of unfulfilled

hopes and threats. Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom promised our nation a new

political and economic framework. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal promised

security and succor to those in need. But the New Frontier of which I

speak is not a set of promises--it is a set of challenges. It sums up not

what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of

them.

Speech accepting Democratic nomination in Los Angeles, 15 July 1960, in

Vital Speeches 1 Aug. 1960, p. 611

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,

proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow

undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been

committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the

world.

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 assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 226

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the

few who are rich.

Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 226

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 227

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be

finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration,

nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 227

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 address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 227

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask

what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not

what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom

of man.

Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 227.

Cf. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., speech at Keene, New Hampshire, 30 May

1884: "We pause to...recall what our country has done for each of us and

to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."

I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal,

before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him

safely to earth.

Supplementary State of the Union message to Congress, 25 May 1961, in

Vital Speeches 15 June 1961, p. 518

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution

inevitable.

Speech at White House, 13 Mar. 1962, in Vital Speeches 1 Apr. 1962, p. 356

11.19 Joseph P. Kennedy =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1888-1969

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

In J. H. Cutler Honey Fitz (1962) p. 291 (also attributed to Knute Rockne)

See also John F. Kennedy (11.18 )

11.20 Robert F. Kennedy =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1925-1968

About one-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.

Speech at University of Pennsylvania, 6 May 1964, in Philadelphia Inquirer

7 May 1964

11.21 Jack Kerouac =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1922-1969

John Clellon Holmes...and I were sitting around trying to think up the

meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent Existentialism and I

said, "You know, this is really a beat generation" and he leapt up and

said "That's it, that's right!"

Playboy June 1959, p. 32

11.22 Jean Kerr =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1923-

As someone pointed out recently, if you can keep your head when all about

you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the

situation.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1957) introduction. Cf. Rudyard Kipling

126:13

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's

deep enough. What do you want--an adorable pancreas?

The Snake has all the Lines (1958) p. 142

11.23 Joseph Kesselring =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1902-1967

Arsenic and old lace.

Title of play (1941)

11.24 John Maynard Keynes (Baron Keynes) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1883-1946

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

Letter to Duncan Grant, 15 Dec. 1917, in British Library Add. MSS 57931

fo. 119

He [Clemenceau] felt about France what Pericles felt of Athens--unique

value in her, nothing else mattering; but his theory of politics was

Bismarck's. He had one illusion--France; and one disillusion--mankind,

including Frenchmen, and his colleagues not least.

Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) ch. 3

Like Odysseus, the President [Woodrow Wilson] looked wiser when he was

seated.

Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) ch. 3

Lenin was right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the

existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process

engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction,

and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to

diagnose.

Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) ch. 6

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the

emancipation of the mind. I do not know which makes a man more

conservative--to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

End of Laissez-Faire (1926) pt. 1

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of

Opinion--how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so

powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through

them, the events of history.

End of Laissez-Faire (1926) pt. 3

The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals

are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but

to do those things which at present are not done at all.

End of Laissez-Faire (1926) pt. 4

I think that Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more

efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in

sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable.

End of Laissez-Faire (1926) pt. 5

How can I convey to the reader, who does not know him, any just impression

of this extraordinary figure of our time, this syren, this goat-footed

bard, this half-human visitor to our age from the hag-ridden magic and

enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity? One catches in his company that

flavour of final purposelessness, inner irresponsibility, existence

outside or away from our Saxon good and evil, mixed with cunning,

remorselessness, love of power, that lend fascination, enthralment, and

terror to the fair-seeming magicians of North European folklore.

Essays in Biography (1933) "Mr Lloyd George"

It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over

his fellow-citizens.

General Theory of Employment (1936) ch. 24

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are

right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly

understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who

believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences,

are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority,

who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic

scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested

interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of

ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the

field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are

influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of

age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even

agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But

soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for

good or evil.

General Theory of Employment (1936; 1947 ed.) ch. 24

I remember in my youth asking Maynard Keynes, "What do you think happens

to Mr Lloyd George when he is alone in the room?" And Keynes replied,

"When he is alone in the room there is nobody there."

Lady Violet Bonham-Carter Impact of Personality in Politics (Romanes

Lecture, 1963) p. 6

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long

run we are all dead.

Tract on Monetary Reform (1923) ch. 3

11.25 Nikita Khrushchev =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1894-1971

Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and

for all.

Speech to secret session of 20th Congress of the Communist Party, 25 Feb.

1956, in Dethronement of Stalin (Manchester Guardian) 11 June 1956, p. 27

If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of

Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself. Those who wait for that must

wait until a shrimp learns to whistle.

Speech in Moscow, 17 Sept. 1955, in New York Times 18 Sept. 1955, p. 19

If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall throw a couple of

porcupines under you.

In New York Times 7 Nov. 1963

Anyone who believes that the worker can be lulled by fine revolutionary

phrases is mistaken....If no concern is shown for the growth of material

and spiritual riches, the people will listen today, they will listen

tomorrow, and then they may say: "Why do you promise us everything for the

future? You are talking, so to speak, about life beyond the grave. The

priest has already told us about this."

Speech at World Youth Forum, 19 Sept. 1964, in Pravda 22 Sept. 1964

If one cannot catch the bird of paradise, better take a wet hen.

In Time 6 Jan. 1958

We say this not only for the socialist states, who are more akin to us. We

base ourselves on the idea that we must peacefully co-exist. About the

capitalist States, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If

you don't like us, don't accept our invitations and don't invite us to

come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We

will bury you.

Speech to Western diplomats at reception in Moscow for Polish leader Mr

Gomulka, 18 Nov. 1956, in The Times 19 Nov. 1956

11.26 Joyce Kilmer =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1886-1918

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

Trees and Other Poems (1914) "Trees"

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Trees and Other Poems (1914) "Trees"

11.27 Lord Kilmuir (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-