The world of sports knows no religious, racial or political differences. Athletes, from whatever land they come, speak the same language. The lessons of competition are lessons for life.
I come from a family that has always emphasized and enjoyed sports – golf, tennis, football, baseball and the rest.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
One of the primary purposes of civilization – and certainly its primary strength – is the guarantee that family life can flourish in unity, peace, and order.
Communism everywhere has paid the price of rigidity and dogmatism. Freedom has the strength of compassion and flexibility. It has, above all, the strength of intellectual honesty.
If any man claims the Negro should be content… let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.
Lack of education, old age, bad health or discrimination – these are causes of poverty, and the way to attack it is to go to the root.
From the first moment of independence, the United States has been dedicated to innovation as a way of government and a way of life.
The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.
There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.
Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men’s lives.
If I get to be president, what can I do anyway? With Congress and the press, what chance do I have to make basic changes?
But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?
I believe indeterminate sentencing can be extremely useful, but I also believe that any such system should always take into consideration the special knowledge as to the facts in a case which only the trial judge possesses.
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best.
One can find a squalid America as easily as a scenic America; a bitter, hopeless America as easily as the confident America of polyethylene wrapping, new cars, and camping trips in the summer.
The ultimate relationship between justice and law will be an eternal subject for speculation and analysis. But it may be said that in a democratic society, law is the form which free men give to justice.
Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.
We must continue to prove to the world that we can provide a rising standard of living for all men without loss of civil rights or human dignity to any man.
Yesterday, we fought wars which destroyed cities. Today, we are concerned with avoiding a war which will destroy the earth. We can adapt atomic energy to produce electricity and move ships, but can we control its use in anger?
In my judgment, physical fitness is basic to all forms of excellence and to a strong, confident nation.
Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.
We have very strong environmental laws in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The problem is that they’re seldom enforced.
I always knew that I was going be an environmental advocate when I was very young.
No one needs to tell me about the importance of the free press in a democratic society or about the essential role a newspaper can play in its community.
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity – the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
I can understand the Chinese Wall: it was built as a defense against marauders. But a wall such as that in Berlin, built to prevent people from seeking freedom, is almost beyond comprehension.
It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.