Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
516
AUTHOR:
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)
QUOTATION:
Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.
ATTRIBUTION:
President JOHN F. KENNEDY, inaugural address, January 20, 1961.—The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 2. The words in quotation marks are from the Bible, Romans 12:12.
This is one of seven inscriptions carved on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery.
