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John F. Kennedy Quotes about War - Page 2

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The mere absence of war is not peace.

The mere absence of war is not peace.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Military
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, www.presidency.ucsb.edu. January 14, 1963.

Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

John F. Kennedy
War, Survival, Enemy
Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, History
Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (1965)

If there is one path above all others to war, it is the path of weakness and disunity.

John F. Kennedy
War, Weakness, Path
Kennedy, John F. (1962). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961”, p.539, Best Books on

We must create world-wide law and law enforcement as we outlaw world-wide war and weapon

John F. Kennedy
War, Law, Enforcement

In free society art is not a weapon...Artists are not engineers of the soul.

John F. Kennedy
Art, War, Soul
Speech at Amherst College, Mass., 26 Oct. 1963, in New York Times 27 Oct. 1963, p. 87

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

John F. Kennedy
Birthday, Determination, War
Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Ubuntu
Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation, delivered 22 October 1962

There are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious. I think the fate not only of our own civilization, but I think the fate of world and the future of the human race, is involved in preventing a nuclear war.

John F. Kennedy
War, Fate, Thinking
Third Nixon-Kennedy Presidential Debate, October 13, 1960.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

John F. Kennedy
Strong, Hate, War
American University Commencement Address, delivered 10 June 1963

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support - to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective - to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak - and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

John F. Kennedy
Running, War, Support
Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1961

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Moving
American University Commencement Address, delivered 10 June 1963

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war... But we have no more urgent task.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Men
American University Commencement Address, delivered 10 June 1963

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the Great Powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.

John F. Kennedy
War, Wind, Water
Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

I dont think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists.

John F. Kennedy
War, Winning, Men

[War] can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Concern

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades. 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.

John F. Kennedy
Country, War, Pride
Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a 'Berliner'), delivered 26 June 1963, West Berlin

A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.

John F. Kennedy
Wall, War, Cold
"Savage century". The Sunday Times, May 28, 2006.

There is no city in the United States in which I can get a warmer welcome and fewer votes than Columbia, Ohio.

John F. Kennedy
War, Ohio, Cities

Should I become President...I will not risk American lives...by permitting any other nation to drag us into the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time through an unwise commitment that is unwise militarily, unnecessary to our security and unsupported by our allies.

John F. Kennedy
War, Commitment, Risk

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

John F. Kennedy
Military, War, Past
Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation, delivered 22 October 1962

We've spent half the expenditures, we've wrecked our budget on all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in the pell-mell fashion is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind them, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. I think it would be a helluva thing for us.

John F. Kennedy
Fashion, Couple, War

The world has been close to war before - but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over.

John F. Kennedy
War, Taken, Men
Address of Senator John F. Kennedy accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency of the United States at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, www.jfklibrary.org. July 15, 1960.

The science of weapons and war has made us all one world and one human race with one common destiny.

John F. Kennedy
War, Destiny, Race

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

John F. Kennedy
Peace, War, Victory
Speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 25, 1961.