Robert Kennedy Quotes & Sayings

The history of antitrust law enforcement shows that successful antitrust prosecutions have often strengthened and brought vitality to extremely large companies and businesses. — Robert Kennedy

Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the 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 prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. 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 love of ease. — Robert Kennedy

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? — Robert Kennedy

Science began as one of the noblest expressions of man's reason. It will continue to serve humanity so long as it never forgets that human beings remain the heart of its purpose. — Robert Kennedy

Even as my father grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, signs told him: 'No Irish Need Apply.' — Robert Kennedy

I am ashamed to report that my father, who is 73, has never been beaten by any of his four sons in golf. We have all become resigned to the fact that he has determined that he won't be beaten. — Robert Kennedy

Automation provides us with wondrous increases of production and information, but does it tell us what to do with the men the machines displace? Modern industry gives us the capacity for unparalleled wealth - but where is our capacity to make that wealth meaningful to the poor of every nation? — Robert Kennedy

From the first moment of independence, the United States has been dedicated to innovation as a way of government and a way of life. — Robert Kennedy

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

We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. — Robert Kennedy

Killing one man is murder. Killing millions is a statistic — Robert Kennedy

Nothing is more false than the notion that the triumph of Communism is inevitable or that the Communists are steadily pushing the free world into a corner. — Robert Kennedy

The leaders of the world face no greater task than that of avoiding nuclear war. While preserving the cause of freedom, we must seek abolition of war through programs of general and complete disarmament. The Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 represents a significant beginning in this immense undertaking. — Robert Kennedy

I like to be involved in politics. I like to be involved in government. I've been in politics all my life. I would like to remain in government. I don't think that's so sinister. — Robert Kennedy

Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live. — Robert Kennedy

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

I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor. — Robert Kennedy

When companies get together secretly to fix prices and attempt to eliminate competition, honest businessmen suffer. I think this is wrong. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

When I was counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee, about 25% of the important leads which our committee developed came from newspapers. This increased my respect for those courageous newspapers which assisted us. It also caused me to look with wonderment at some of the newspapers that did not. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge himself - on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort. — Robert Kennedy

Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others. — Robert Kennedy

Our generation was born during the turmoil following the First World War. That war marked the dividing line - at least for the Western World - between the comfortable security of the 19th century and the instability and flux of our own time. — Robert Kennedy

Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment, 'Stay, thou art so fair. — Robert Kennedy

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

It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

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 or uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people. — Robert Kennedy

Let me make it clear that the Youth Employment Opportunities Act of 1961 is not primarily concerned with delinquency prevention. Rather, it is designed to help all types of young men or women who suffer deficiencies of training or opportunity which keep them unemployed. — Robert Kennedy

Send forth a tiny ripple of hope. — Robert Kennedy

In Massachusetts they [Democratic politicians] steal, in California they feud, and in New York they lie. — Robert Kennedy

We in Government have begun to recognize the critical work which must be done at all levels-local, State and Federal-in ending the pollution of our waters. — Robert Kennedy

This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. — Robert Kennedy

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes. — Robert Kennedy

I have told friends and supporters who are urging me to run that I would not oppose President Johnson under any foreseeable circumstances. — Robert Kennedy

If we want to meet the obligations of our civilization and our culture which are to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start by protecting that infrastructure; the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the landscapes that enrich us. — Robert Kennedy

The intolerant man will not rely on persuasion, or on the worth of the idea. He would deny to others the very freedom of opinion or of dissent which he so stridently demands for himself. He cannot trust democracy. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

We know that freedom has many dimensions. It is the right of the man who tills the land to own the land; the right of the workers to join together to seek better conditions of labor; the right of businessmen to use ingenuity and foresight to produce and distribute without arbitrary interference in a truly competitive economy. — Robert Kennedy

Lawyers have their duties as citizens, but they also have special duties as lawyers. Their obligations go far deeper than earning a living as specialists in corporation or tax law. They have a continuing responsibility to uphold the fundamental principles of justice from which the law cannot depart. — Robert Kennedy

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

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 Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

Oh no, oh no ... don't lift me, don't lift me. — Robert Kennedy

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 Kennedy

What is learned on the athletic field is not forgotten, nor are the lessons of character that are forged there ever lost. Consider the contributions in the field of public life, business, law, medicine, and the military of those who actively participated in athletics. — Robert Kennedy

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

To the extent that laws are founded on morality and on logic, they can lead men's hearts and minds. — Robert Kennedy

It is not more bigness that should be our goal. We must attempt, rather, to bring people back to ... the warmth of community, to the worth of individual effort and responsibility ... and of individuals working together as a community, to better their lives and their children's future. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

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

The right to vote is the easiest of all rights to grant. — Robert Kennedy

Everything that makes man's life worthwhile - family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head - all this depends on the decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people. — Robert Kennedy

It is an unfinished society that we offer the world-a society that is forever committed to change, to improvement and to growth, that will never stagnate in the certitude of ideology or the finalities of dogma. — Robert Kennedy

Communism counts its opportunities in terms of decades - not of weeks. Its means of aggression consist not only of nuclear weapons and missiles with enormous boosters, and not only of spies, agents and terrorists, but of great masses of men and women, deluded by a common ideology which inspires them with a false hope. — Robert Kennedy

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

If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. — Robert Kennedy

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

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

I love this city. If I am elected, I'll move the White House to San Francisco. Everybody's so friendly. — Robert Kennedy

The hardest problems of all in law enforcement are those involving a conflict of law and local customs. History has recorded many occasions when the moral sense of a nation produced judicial decisions, such as the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which required difficult local adjustments. — Robert Kennedy

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

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

I don't believe newspaper reporters can substitute for a district attorney, but a newspaper has a very valid investigative role. Newspaper reports on corruption in government, racketeering and organized crime conditions can be very helpful to your communities and the whole country. — Robert Kennedy

In government, our chief executives have been lawyers. The great majority of our cabinets and congresses are and have been men trained in the law. They have provided the leadership and the statecraft and the store of strength when it was needed. — Robert Kennedy

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. — Robert Kennedy

Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy. — Robert Kennedy

It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants. — Robert Kennedy

The Gross National Product 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 can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans. — Robert Kennedy

Your life can be anything you want it to be. — Robert Kennedy

Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances. — Robert Kennedy

I believe that as long as a single man may try, any unjustifiable barrier against his efforts is a barrier against mankind. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. — Robert Kennedy

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

In my judgment, physical fitness is basic to all forms of excellence and to a strong, confident nation. — Robert Kennedy

Those who challenge the law in one or another of its aspects weaken the whole legal structure of society. For one man to disobey a law he does not like is to invite others to disobey another law which he may regard as indispensable to his own livelihood - or life. — Robert Kennedy

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

We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price. — Robert Kennedy

A life without criticism is not worth living. — Robert Kennedy

American books reflect our common heritage with many other nations and their influence upon our culture. The influences are endless, linking us with the rest of the world. Thus, they are good ambassadors for us. — Robert Kennedy

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

The glory of justice and the majesty of law are created not just by the Constitution - nor by the courts - nor by the officers of the law - nor by the lawyers - but by the men and women who constitute our society - who are the protectors of the law as they are themselves protected by the law. — Robert Kennedy

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

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. — Robert Kennedy

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

We should, I believe, beware of the pitfalls described by Taine: 'Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree. A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room.' We have to get out of this room. — Robert Kennedy

In my judgment, the slogan "black power" and what has been associated with it has set the civil rights movement back considerably in the United States over the period of the last several months. — Robert Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

[The overthrow of the Castro regime] is the top priority of the US government. - all else is secondary - no time, no effort, or manpower is to be spared. — Robert Kennedy

Satellite communications connect television screens in Japan with television cameras in England, and the distance of half a world loses its meaning. — Robert Kennedy

President Kennedy has named two Negroes to District Judgeships and appointed Thurgood Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals. When I came to the Department of Justice, there were only ten Negroes employed as lawyers; not a single Negro served as a United States Attorney - or ever had in the history of the country. That has been changed. — Robert Kennedy

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 Kennedy

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. — Robert Kennedy

It will help erase the idea that politics is a second-rate profession and a dirty business. — Robert Kennedy

One of the great creative statesmen of our age was Franklin Roosevelt. He was creative precisely because he preferred experiment to ideology. — Robert Kennedy

GDP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play — Robert Kennedy

When historians consider the significance of the Berlin crises of the mid-20th century, I do not believe that they will record it as an incident in the encirclement of freedom. The true view, in my judgment, will be to see it rather as a major episode in the recession of communism. — Robert Kennedy

When our forbears - yours and mine - came to America, they came because this country promised them something. It promised them an opportunity, nourished by education, not merely to grind for a bare living, but to strive for a good life. — Robert Kennedy