John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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

The New Frontier I speak of 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 intent to ask of them.

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

And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts foreign ideas alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

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.

The mere absence of war is not peace. The mere absence of recession is not growth.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Man is the most extraordinary computer of all.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.