The quotations of

Robert F. Kennedy

American politician and lawyer

1925–1968

11 quotes, most often on America, Change and History.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
- Failure
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
“Conflict in Vietnam and at Home” speech at Kansas State University on March 18, 1968 as part of the Alfred M. Landon Lectures on Public Issues.
- Wisdom
Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
“Extremism, Left and Right,” pt. 3, (1964)
- America
- Freedom
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.
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Cape Town (6 June 1966)
- Change
- History
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.
The Opening to the Future Adress at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California (June 8, 1964)
- Change
- History
We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment.
On the Mindless Menace of Violence (1968)
Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.
Farewell statement, Warsaw, Poland, reported in The New York Times (2 July 1964)
- Motivation & Goals
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others.
On the Mindless Menace of Violence (1968)
- Charity
- Morality
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.
“I Remember, I Believe,” The Pursuit of Justice (1964)
- Politics
- Power
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 and lawlessness, but is 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 whether they be black.
Speech on the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Indianapolis (4 April 1968)
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.
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Cape Town (6 June 1966)

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