dots-menu
×

Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 623
AUTHOR: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)
QUOTATION: To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
ATTRIBUTION: President JOHN F. KENNEDY, inaugural address, January 20, 1961.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 1.
SUBJECTS: Foreign policy