Robert Kennedy famous quotes

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Believe #Government #Evil

If communist unions ever gain a position to exercise influence in the transport lanes of the world, the free world will have suffered a staggering blow.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Exercise #Blow #World

It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Change #Courage #Peace

If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Doors #Keys #Darkness

He tells so many lies that he convinces himself after a while that he's telling the truth. He just doesn't recognize truth or falsehood.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Lying #Presidential #Telling The Truth

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Change #Courage #Men

The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Country #Hands #Criticism

Send forth a tiny ripple of hope.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Tiny #Ripple

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Motivational #Success #Men

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Change #Nice #Inspiration

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Believe #Long #Evil

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Time #Adventure #Imagination

Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Eye #Blow #Law

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Inspirational #Success #Failure

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Children #Taken #Passion

Fear not the path of Truth for the lack of People walking on it.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Success #Truth #People

The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Way #Purpose #Life Is

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Evil #Opponents #Causes

...the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Country #Children #Integrity

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.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Political #Mind #Tasks

You're happiest while you're making the greatest contribution.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Happiness #Contribution

In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfilment of the best qualities of your own spirit.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Lying #Hands #Quality

Courage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage that they would stand up, that they could be counted on.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Baseball #Fighting #People

What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet... What we need is not division; what we need is not hatred, but love and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who suffer within our community, whatever their color or faith. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Men #Compassion #Color

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.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Law #Community #Police

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills... Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man
-- Robert Kennedy

#Believe #Men #World

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.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Change #Equality #Men

The future is not completely beyond our control. It is the work of our own hands.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Inspiring #Hands

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
-- Robert Kennedy

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Hope #Tiny #Ripple

Change has its enemies.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Enemy #Management

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Motivational #Courage #Future

People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Men #People #Political

All of us will ultimately be judged on the effort we have contributed to building a new world order.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Government #Order #Effort

The future does not belong to those who are content with today Rather, it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason, and courage in a personal commitment.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Commitment #Vision #Today

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.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Change #Courage #Creativity

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Dream #Honor #Swagger

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Men #Years #Political

The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man, in every child is the potential for greatness.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Children #Truth #Greatness

We must recognize the full human equality of all our people - before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this not because it is economically advantageous - although it is; not because the laws of God and man command it - although they do command it; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Men #Law #Land

I think there is an obligation on the part of all of us to stay informed and aware.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Thinking #Obligation

But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, in the extent to which you have used your gifts and talents to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow men. In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfillment of the best qualities of your own spirit.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Lying #Men #Hands

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Inspirational #History #Political

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?
-- Robert Kennedy

#Powerful #White #Racism

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Religious #Freedom #Men

I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and I have such strong feelings about what must be done.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Running #Country #Strong

Courage is the most important attribute of a lawyer.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Important #Lawyer #Attributes

My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by the fact that I was seventh of nine children.
-- Robert Kennedy

#Children #Views #Nine