Quotes to inspire and reflect

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

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.

Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

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.

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

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.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal.

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.

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960's - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils - a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.

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.

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

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.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

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

A child miseducated is a child lost.

Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.

A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.

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.'