Aeschylus
"Aeschylus wrote: In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls
drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need
in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States
is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion
toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still
suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
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 the world."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source: Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968.
America
All of us , from the wealthiest and most powerful
of men, to the weakest and hungriest of children,
share one precious possession: the name American.
RFK, NY,12-14-67
As long as men are not free--in their lives and
their opinions, their speech and knowledge--
that long will the American Revolution not be
finished.
RFK, Queens College, NY, 6-15-65
Our 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
strenght 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 worth while.
And it can tell us everything about America except
why we are proud that we are Americans.
RFK, University of Kansas, 3-18-67
Challenge
"On this generation of Americans falls the
burden of proving to the world that we really mean
it when we say all men are created free and are
equal before the law. All of us might wish at times
that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't.
And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are
they challenging and filled with opportunity."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Speech, Law Day Exercises of the University of Georgia Law School, May 6, 1961.
Children
"Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in
which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of
tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the
world can help us do this?"
From Albert Camus. Appears on the dedication page of
Robert F. Kennedy's last book, To Seek a Newer World (Doubleday, 1967).
Citizenship
"Since the days of Greece and Rome when the
word 'citizen' was a title of honor, we have often
seen more emphasis put on the rights of
citizenship than on its responsibilities. And today,
as never before in the free world, responsibility
is the greatest right of citizenship and service is
the greatest of freedom's privileges."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:University of San Francisco Law School,
San Francisco, California, September 29, 1962.
Crisis
You can hear the fabric ripping...
RFK
Dare
"If we fail to dare, if we do not try, the next generation will harvest
the fruit of our indifference; a world we did not want - a world we
did not choose - but a world we could have made better, by caring
more for the results of our labors. And we shall be left only with the
hollow apology of T.S. Eliot: 'That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all'."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:8/23/67, Americana Hotel, New York, N.Y
Death Of Martin Luther King Jr.
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow
citizens, and people who love peace all over
the world, and that is that Martin Luther King
was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love
and to justice for his fellow human beings, and
he died because of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the
United States, it is perhaps well to ask what
kind of a nation we are and what direction we
want to move in. For those of you who are
black -- considering the evidence their evidently
is that there were white people who were
responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness,
with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can
move in that direction as a country, in great
polarization -- black people amongst black,
white people amongst white, filled with hatred
toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King
did, to understand and to comprehend, and to
replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed
that has spread across our land, with an effort
to understand with compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted
to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice
of such an act, against all white people, I can only
say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of
feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he
was killed by a white man. But we have to make an
effort in the United States, we have to make an
effort to understand, to go beyond these rather
difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote:
"In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop
by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair,
against our will, comes wisdom through the awful
grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division;
what we need in the United States is not hatred;
what we need in the United States is not violence or
lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion
toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward
those who still suffer within our country, whether
they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a
prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true,
but more importantly to say a prayer for our own
country, which all of us love -- a prayer for
understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult
times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will
have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of
violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the
end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast
majority of black people in this country want to live
together, want to improve the quality of our life, and
want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.
Let us dedicate to ourselves to what the Greeks
wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of
man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for
our country and for our people.
Democracy
"Democracy is no easy form of government. Few
nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires
that we take the chances of freedom; that the
liberating play of reason be brought to bear on
events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed
to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance
error in their search for the truth."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Statement on Vietnam, February 19, 1966
Democratic Party
"And as long as America must choose, that long
will there be a need and a place for the Democratic
Party. We Democrats can run on our record but
we cannot rest on it. We will win if we continue
to take the initiative and if we carry the message
of hope and action throughout the country.
Alexander Smith once said, 'A man doesn't plant
a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
' Let us continue to plant, and our children shall
reap the harvest. That is our destiny as Democrats."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Testimonial Dinner for Lieutenant
Governor Patrick J. Lucey of Wisconsin, August 15, 1965.
Dissent
"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand
with the deepest idealism and love of country."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967.
Divisions
"I think we can end the divisions within the
United States. What I think is quite clear is that
we can work together in the last analysis. And
that what has been going on with the United
States over the period of that last three years,
the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment
with our society, the divisions - whether it's
between blacks and whites, between the poor
and the more affluent, or between age groups,
or in the war in Vietnam - that we can work
together. We are a great country, an unselfish
country and a compassionate country. And I
intend to make that my basis for running."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:California Victory Speech, Los Angeles,
California, June 4, 1968.
Equality
"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 F. Kennedy
Source:Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown,
South African, June 6, 1966
Extremists
What is objectionable, what is dangerous about
extremists is not that they are extream, but that
they are intolerant. The evil is not what they
say about their causes, but what they say about
their opponents.
RFK 1964
Future
The future is not a gift: it is an achievement.
Every generation helps make its own future.
This is the essential challenge of the present."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Seattle World's Fair, August 7, 1962
"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 F. Kennedy
Source:Address, University of California at Berkeley,
October 22, 1966.
Greatness
"Only those who dare to fail greatly,
can ever achieve greatly."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966.
Individualism
At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is
the belief that the individual man, the child of God,
is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups,
the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the
enlargement of liberty for individual human beings
must be the supream goal and the abiding practice of
any Western society.
Robert F. Kennedy 'Day of Affirmation' address
University of Cape Town, South Africa, June 6th, 66
First, is the danger of futility; the belief there is
nothing one man or woman can do against the enormous
array of the worlds ills--against misery and ignorance,
injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great
movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the
work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant
Reformation, a young general extended an empire from
Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman
reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young
Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the
thirty-two year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed
that all men are created equal.
Robert F. Kennedy 6-6-1966
Johnson, Lyndon
"How do you tell if Lyndon is lying? If he wiggles his ears,
that doesn't mean he's lying. If he raises his eyebrows,
that doesn't mean he's lying. But when he moves his lips,
he's lying.''
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/08
/INGKA828N61.DTL
Labor
You knew that what is given or granted can be taken
away, that what is begged can be refused; but that
what is earned is kept.
Robert F. Kennedy, 12-10-1966
Leadership
"People are selfish, but they can also be compassionate
and generous, and they care about the country. But not
when they feel threatened. That's why this is such a
crucial time. We can go in either direction. But if we
don't make a choice soon, it will be too late to turn
things around. I think people are willing to make the
right choice. But they need leadership. They're hungry
for leadership."
RFK
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16981
Liberty
Every dictatorship has ultimately strangled in the web
of repression it wove for its people, making mistakes
that could not be corrected because criticism was
prohibited.
Robert F. Kennedy 'Value of Dissent' Speech
Nashville Tenn, 3-21-1968
Nations around the world look to us for the leadership
not merely by strenght of arms but by strenght of our
convictions.
Robert F. Kennedy
We know that if one man's rights are denied, the rights
of all are endangered.
Robert F. Kennedy, 5-6-1961
Nations
"Nations, like men, often march to the beat of
different drummers, and the precise solutions
of the United States can neither be dictated
nor transplanted to others. What is important is
that all nations must march toward a increasing
freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society
strong and flexible enough to meet the demands
of all of its own people, and a world of immense
and dizzying change.
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown,
South African, June 6, 1966
One Fifth
One-fifth of the people are against
everything all the time.
Past,Present, and Future
There are people in every time and every land who
want to stop history in its tracts. They fear the
future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security
of the comfortable past which , in fact, never existed.
Robert F. Kennedy, 6-8-64
Political Parties
The Democratic Party...presents its case on a strong
platform and strong candidates, on a proven record of
past accomplishment, on the evidence that it alone has
the vision and boldness to meet the challenge of
leadership of the free world.
Robert F. Kennedy, Boston Mass
8-2-1960
In this entire century the Democratic Party has never
been invested with power on the basis of a program
which promised to keep things as they were. We have
won when we pledged to meet the new challenges of each
succeeding year. We have triumphed not in spite of
controversy, but because of it; not because we avoided
problems, but because we faced them. We have won, not
because we bent and diluted our principles, but because
we stood fast to the ideals which represent the most
noble and generous portion of the American spirit.
Robert F. Kennedy
Parties are instruments of government....The business
of parties is not just win elections. It is to govern.
And a party cannot govern if it is disunited.
Robert F. Kennedy, Kings County Democratic dinner
Brooklyn, NY, 1965
Politics and Diplomacy
He knows all the facts, and he's against all the
solutions.
Robert F. Kennedy, referring to
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Poverty
"I believe that, as long as there is plenty,
poverty is evil."
ROBERT F. Kennedy
Source:Speech, Athens, Georgia, May 6, 1961
And there was not only the violence of the shot in the
night. Slower but just as deadly,
[Martin Luther King Jr.] said, was 'the violence of
institutions....This is the violence that afflicts the
poor, that poisons relations between men because their
skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction
of a child by hunger...the breaking of a man's spirit
by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a
man among men.' So much at least was clear: 'Violence
breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and
only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this
sickness from our soul.'
Robert F. Kennedy, Cleveland City Club, 4-5-1968
Power and the Public
"The problem of power is how to achieve its
responsible use rather than its irresponsible
and indulgent use -- of how to get men of power
to live for the public rather than off the public."
-- Robert F. Kennedy
(1925-1968), US Senator, Attorney General
Source: 'I Remember, I Believe,'
The Pursuit of Justice, 1964
President Kennedy
When there were difficulties,
you sustained him.
When there were periods of crisis,
you stood beside him.
When there were periods of happiness,
you laughed with him.
And when there were periods of sorrow,
you comforted him.
RFK, thanking young people for supporting his
brother, President Kennedy, 8-27-64
President Kennedy's Favorite Quote
President Kennedy's favorite quote was really from Dante :
'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in
time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.'"
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Columbia University/Barnard Democratic Club, 10/5/64.
Progress and Change
'If men do not build,' asks the poet,
'how shall they live?'
Robert F. Kennedy, 12-10-1966
Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression,
do not make revolutions. It is when expectation
replaces submission, when despair is touched with the
awareness of possibility, that the forces of human
desire and the passion for justice are unloosed.
Robert F. Kennedy, Berkeley, 10-22-1966
A revolution is coming--a revolution which will be
peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we
care enough; successful if we are fourtunate enough--
But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or
not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its
inevitability.
Robert F. Kennedy, US Senate, 5-9-1966
We can master change not though force or fear, but only
though the free work of an understanding mind, though
an openness to new knowledge and fresh outlooks, which
can only strengthen the most fragile and most powerful
of human gifts: the gift of reason.
Robert F. Kennedy, Johannesburg, South Africa
June 8,1966
Quality Of Life
"Too much and too long, we seem to have
surrendered community excellence and community
values in the mere accumulation of material things.
Our gross national product ... if we should judge
America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette
advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways
of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors
and the jails for those who break them. It counts
the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of
our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts
napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and
armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets.
It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the
television programs which glorify violence in order to
sell toys to our children.
"Yet 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. And it tells us everything about
America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas,
March 18, 1968.
Question
."All great questions must be raised by great voices,
and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose,
or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms,
courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the
gratitude of mankind."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Address, New York City, January 22, 1963.
Ripple of Hope
"Few will have the greatness to bend history;
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 ... It is from numberless diverse acts
of courage and belief that human history is
thus 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 which
can sweep down the mightiest walls of
oppression and resistance."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown,
South Africa, June 6, 1966.
Society
Another great task is to confront the poverty of
satisfaction--a lack of purpose and dignity--that afflicts
us all. Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered
community excellence and community values in the mere
accumulation of material things.
RFK, Univ of Kansas, 3-18-68
Truth
"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people
walking on it."
June 6th, 1968
The last speech he gave...
Unity
That which unites us is, must be, stronger than that which
divides us. We can concentrate on what unites us, and
secure the future for all our children; or we can
concentrate on what devides us, and fail our duty through
argument and resentment and waste.
RFK
University of Alabama
"I am glad to come to the University of Alabama. I'm delighted
to see the inside of this building. I didn't think it meant anything
that they snuck me around the back way. They said someone
was waiting out in front there."
Robert F. Kennedy
March 21, 1968.
Urban Affairs
The plight of the cities--their physical decay and human
despair that pervades them--is the great internal problem
of the American nation, a challenge which must be met.
RFK Buffalo NY, 1-20-67
Violence and Lawlessness
"What has violence ever accomplished?
What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has
ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and
civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a
hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is
only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
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 F. Kenndy
Source:On the Mindless Menace of Violence, Cleveland, Ohio,
April 5, 1968.
Vietnam War
Our brave young men are dying in the swamps of
Southeast Asia. Which of them might have written
a poem? Which of them might have cured cancer?
Which of them might have played in a World Series
or given us the gift of laughter from the stage
or helped build a bridge or a university?
Which of them would have taught a child to read?
It is our responsibility to let these men live....
It is indecent if they die because of the empty
vanity of their country.
RFK, Vietnam War speech, Calif, 3-24-68
Voice Of The People
"All great questions must be raised by great
voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of
the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting
or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and
halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let
that voice speak and the stillness you hear will
be the gratitude of mankind."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source: Address, New York City, January 22, 1963.
War
The advice 'bomb them back to the Stone Age' may show
that the speaker is already there himself, but it
could, if followed, force all of us to join him.
RFK
Punishment is not prevention. History offers cold
comfort to those who think grievance and despair
can be subdued by force.
RFK, To Seek a New World, 1967
Youth
My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by
the fact that I was seventh of nine children.
RFK
Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth.
The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing
planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn
slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a
present which is already dying, who perfer the illusion
of security to the excitement of danger. It 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 love of ease.
RFK, Cape Town, South Africa, June 6th, 1966
"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 imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease."
Robert F. Kennedy
Source:Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown,
South Africa, June 6, 1966.
A Brother's Good Bye
"My brother need not be idealized, or
enlarged in death beyond what he was
in life, to be rememberd simply as a
good decent man, who saw
wrong and tried to right it, saw
suffering and tried to heal it,
saw war and tried to stop it.
"Those of us, who loved him and who
take him to his rest today pray that
what he was to us and what he
wished for others will someday
come to pass for all the world.
"As he said many times, in many parts
of this nation, to those he touched and
who sought to touch him:
'Some men see things as they are
and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.'"
Edward Kennedy
Mail James Richard HowingtonBack to Howie's Great Democratic PageHowie's Stupid GOP Quote PageMartin Luther King Jr.John F. KennedyMy Home PageGreat Democratic SpeechesUS Presidents Web Ring Web Counters
"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be rememberd simply as a good decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. "Those of us, who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world. "As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'" Edward Kennedy Mail James Richard Howington Back to Howie's Great Democratic Page Howie's Stupid GOP Quote Page Martin Luther King Jr. John F. Kennedy My Home Page Great Democratic Speeches US Presidents Web Ring
