Robert Kennedy Quotes

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

It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task. ~ 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

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

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

The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads ... It includes ... the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children. ~ 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

The essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer, not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, or a particular race, but to all its people. ~ 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

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 Kennedy

Merger Evers/John F. Kennedy/Malcolm X/Martin Luther King/Robert Kennedy/Che Guevara/Patrice Lamumba/George Jackson/Cynthia Wesley/Addie Mae Collins/Denise McNair/Carole Robertson/Viola Liuzzo
It was a decade marked by death. Violent and inevitable. Funerals became engraved on the brain, intensifying the ephemeral nature of life. For many in the South it was a decade reminiscent of earlier times, when oak trees sighed over their burdens in the wind; Spanish moss draggled blood to the ground; amen corners creaked with grief; and the thrill of being able, once again, to endure unendurable loss produced so profound an ecstasy in mourners that they strutted, without noticing their feet, along the thin backs of benches: their piercing shouts of anguish and joy never interrupted by an inglorious fall. They shared rituals for the dead to be remembered. ~ Alice Walker

It certainly should not surprise us that a young person without any real stake in a legitimate occupation or career may get into trouble more easily. Such persons readily accept the idea that they have been unjustly deprived of money, status, and opportunity. ~ Robert Kennedy

Send forth a tiny ripple of hope. ~ 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

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

For Robert the experience was another step in education. He was learning in particular that patriotic declarations did not make due process of law superfluous and that he owed a debt to his own inner standards. ~ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

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

Robert Kennedy, on his own, left no great legislative legacy, founded no great institution, led no great movement. His most extraordinary accomplishment - and it was extraordinary - was to embody in himself, and create in others, a kind of transcendent yearning for the possibility of redemptive change. ~ Hendrik Hertzberg

Theodore Sorensen wrote for [Robert Kennedy's 1968] announcement speech: "At stake is not simply the leadership of our party, and even our own country, it is our right to the moral leadership of this planet." The sentence absolutely appalled all the younger Robert Kennedy advisers, who felt it smacked of just the kind of attitude which had gotten us into Vietnam. Nonetheless, despite their protests, it stayed in the speech. ~ David Halberstam

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

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

GNP measures neither our courage, our wisdom neither our compassion. It measures everything except what makes life worthwhile ~ Robert Kennedy

Perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that LSD can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly. ~ Robert Kennedy

There has been far too much hypocrisy in the field of civil rights. It is easy enough to give rousing speeches or call for legislation which has no possibility of passage. ~ Robert Kennedy

I have loved the Department of Justice ever since, as a young boy, I watched Robert Kennedy prove during the Civil Rights Movement how the department can - and must - always be a force for that which is right. ~ Eric Holder

Even government by the consent of the governed, as in our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act against its people; so that there may be no interference with the right to worship, or with the security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties by officials high or low; no restrictions on the freedom of men to seek education or work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may become all he is capable of becoming. ~ 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

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

But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, in the extent to which you have used your gifts and talents to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow men. In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfillment of the best qualities of your own spirit. ~ Robert Kennedy

Some men see what is, and ask 'Why?' I see what might be, and ask 'Why Not?' ~ Robert Kennedy

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 Kennedy

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

If the purpose of the wall was to destroy Berlin, Herr Ulbricht and his cohorts have erred sadly. Berlin is not only going to continue to exist - it's going to grow and grow and grow. Its ties to West Germany will not be severed. ~ Robert Kennedy

At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man ... 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 supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society. ~ Robert Kennedy

Our scientists grapple with the difficulties of placing a man on the moon, but the immediately troubling concern of our society is whether men of different races can sit together at a lunch counter. ~ Robert Kennedy

Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children. ~ Robert Kennedy

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

We in the United States believe in the protection of minorities; we recognize the contributions that they can make and the leadership that they can provide; and we do not believe that any people - whether majority or minority, or individual human beings - are 'expendable' in the cause of theory or of policy. ~ Robert Kennedy

President Kennedy's election was such an enlargement. It expanded religious freedom to include the highest office in the land. President Kennedy's administration was such an enlargement. It advanced the day when the bars of intolerance against all minority groups will be lifted, not only for the presidency, but for all aspects of our national life. ~ Robert Kennedy

A deep, black grief gripped Robert Kennedy in the months following his brother's assassination. He lost weight, fell into melancholy silences, wore his brother's clothes, smoked the cigars his brother had liked, and imitated his mannerisms. ~ Thurston Clarke

Sometimes people think that because you have money and position you are immune from the human experience. But I can feel as lonesome and lost as the next man when I turn the key in the door and go into an empty house that is usually full of kids and dogs. ~ Robert Kennedy

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

Acton sat beside him, a calming smile on his face and placed his hand on the man's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Now, tell me what you saw. And remember," he said, looking down at Garcia with a reassuring smile, "you're safe now. ~ J. Robert Kennedy

Desegregation of schools does not automatically transform them into better schools. It is only a step. The larger goal is to see that the education of our youth is not merely desegregated, but that it is excellent. ~ 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

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

The travail of freedom and justice is not easy, but nothing serious and important in life is easy. The history of humanity has been a continuing struggle against temptation and tyranny - and very little worthwhile has ever been achieved without pain. ~ Robert Kennedy

I think Democrats made a mistake running away from liberalism. Liberalism, uh, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John and Robert Kennedy - that's what the Democratic party ought to reach for. ~ Theodore C. Sorensen

I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor. ~ 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

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

Tolerating organized crime promotes the cheap philosophy that everything is a racket. It promotes cynicism among adults. It contributes to the confusion of the young and to the increase of juvenile delinquency. ~ Robert Kennedy

One of the primary purposes of civilization - and certainly its primary strength - is the guarantee that family life can flourish in unity, peace, and order. ~ 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

If you never quit, youll never fail. ~ 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

Yesterday, we fought wars which destroyed cities. Today, we are concerned with avoiding a war which will destroy the earth. We can adapt atomic energy to produce electricity and move ships, but can we control its use in anger? ~ Robert Kennedy

There'll be people better and smarter than you, Adam. There always are. Your strength must be to want it more, and let nothing get in the way. They called Robert Kennedy ruthless. But for a few months before he died, when I joined his campaign, I knew Bobby very well, and I can tell you he was most ruthless with himself. That's how you should be. ~ Richard North Patterson

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

In 1974, when I started working with the material that became 'Horses,' a lot of our great voices had died. We'd lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. ~ Patti Smith

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

I have to say that when I first started singing, I didn't think it was a very noble profession. I worked for people like Robert Kennedy and I thought: 'Wow, that's what it's about. That's how you change the world.' And then I watched that disintegrate in front of my eyes, and it was very discouraging. ~ Lesley Gore

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

It is easy to overlook the importance of the young in underdeveloped countries. It is the natural course for nations, and diplomats, and those who publish newspapers, to speak to the established order. Seeking out the young requires a conscious effort. ~ 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 history of antitrust law enforcement shows that successful antitrust prosecutions have often strengthened and brought vitality to extremely large companies and businesses. ~ Robert Kennedy

Yesterday, we sought telescopes good enough to see all the planets. Today, we seek vehicles good enough to reach them. ~ Robert Kennedy

All of us might wish at times... ~ 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

The road toward equality of freedom is not easy, and great cost and danger march alongside us. We are committed to peaceful and nonviolent change, and that is important for all to understand - though all change is unsettling. Still, even in the turbulence of protest and struggle is greater hope for the future, as men learn to claim and achieve for themselves the rights formerly petitioned from others. ~ 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

Every American has the duty to obey the law and the right to expect that the law will be enforced. ~ Robert Kennedy

Fortunately, President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy disagreed with the estimate and chose a course of action less ambitious and aggressive than recommended by their advisers. ~ David Kay

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

I thought they'd get one of us, but Jack, after all he's been through, never worried about it I thought it would be me. ~ 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

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

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

In the final analysis, poverty is a condition of helplessness - of inability to cope with the conditions of existence in our complex society. ~ Robert Kennedy

I dream of things that are not and ask why not. ~ Robert Kennedy

A high standard of living cannot remain the exclusive possession of the West - and the sooner we can help other peoples to develop their resources, raise their living standards, and strengthen their national independence, the safer the world will be for us all. ~ Robert Kennedy

I can understand the Chinese Wall: it was built as a defense against marauders. But a wall such as that in Berlin, built to prevent people from seeking freedom, is almost beyond comprehension. ~ Robert Kennedy

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

Victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. ~ Robert Kennedy

I come from a family that has always emphasized and enjoyed sports - golf, tennis, football, baseball and the rest. ~ Robert Kennedy

The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them. ~ Ken Livingstone

they must create the environment for action. In June 1967 Robert Kennedy said,
"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" (p. 237). ~ Daniel P. Modaff

My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by the fact that I was seventh of nine children. ~ Robert Kennedy

Robert Kennedy was such an inspiring figure. His interest in politics seemed to come not from a desire for power, but from a need to help our society live up to its ideals. ~ Elisabeth Shue

GDP doesn't register, as Robert Kennedy put it, "the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate." GDP measures everything, Kennedy concluded, "except that which makes life worthwhile." Nor does GDP take into account unpaid work, the so-called compassionate economy. ~ Eric Weiner

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

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

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

In advising the heads of state to learn from tragedy rather than perpetuate its existence Robert Kennedy excalimed, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." We have a tendency to dwell on tragedy and use it as a justification for tragic occurrences that follow,rather than parse the tragedy, taking from it important lessons and using those lessons to avoid similar tragedies. ~ Megan Karasch

But they were as different as fire and ice. Robert Kennedy thought Eugene McCarthy was pompous, petty, and venal. McCarthy thought Kennedy was a spoiled, unintelligent demagogue. ~ Jack Newfield

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

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

Good union leaders make excellent public leaders in the legislative and executive branches. ~ Robert Kennedy

Freedom possesses many meanings. It speaks not merely in terms of political and religious liberty but also in terms of economic and social progress. ~ Robert Kennedy