Ours would be a sickly democracy–sluggish with age and complacence–if we did not debate great issues with honest zeal. Any enemy that professes to find comfort in this fact confesses his ignorance of democracy’s true strength.

-- Speech as Republican Candidate for President, New York, NY 10/16/1952

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among people and among nations.

-- Farewell Address to the American People,  Washington, D.C. 1/17/1961

Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

-- Farewell Address to the American People,  Washington, D.C. 1/17/1961

We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

-- Farewell Address to the American People, Washington, D.C. 1/17/1961

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable… The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

-- Press conference, 11/17/1963

Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office seeker or by the most powerful foreign threat. The future of this Republic is in the hands of the American voter.

-- Speech to the New York Herald Tribune Forum, New York, NY, 10/25/1949