Robert Kennedy was an American politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964 and as a U.S. Senator from New York from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. He was a member of the Democratic Party and a younger brother of former President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice, and is often remembered for his commitment to the poor and his opposition to the Vietnam War. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Robert Kennedy on civil rights, gdp, inspiring.
Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope.
I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.
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.
Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.
In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfilment of the best qualities of your own spirit.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today Rather, it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason, and courage in a personal commitment.
It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
Robert Kennedy inspirational quote
Robert Kennedy Image Quotes
Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope. — Robert Kennedy
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Short Quotes
The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.
Send forth a tiny ripple of hope.
Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
I dream of things that are not and ask why not.
Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator and change has enemies.
I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.
Industrial agriculture now accounts for over half of America's water pollution.
We know that if one man's rights are denied, the rights of all are endangered.
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
Robert Kennedy Quotes About Civil Rights
The most significant civil rights problem is voting. Each citizen's right to vote is fundamental to all the other rights of citizenship and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 make it the responsibility of the Department of Justice to protect that right. — 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
We know that we cannot live together without rules which tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is permitted and what is prohibited. We know that it is law which enables men to live together, that creates order out of chaos. We know that law is the glue that holds civilization together. — 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
We must continue to prove to the world that we can provide a rising standard of living for all men without loss of civil rights or human dignity to any man. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Quotes About Inspiring
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired. — Robert Kennedy
You're happiest while you're making the greatest contribution. — Robert Kennedy
GNP measures neither our courage, our wisdom neither our compassion. It measures everything except what makes life worthwhile — Robert Kennedy
Don't get mad, get even. — Robert Kennedy
Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Quotes About Life
This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease. — Robert Kennedy
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. — Robert Kennedy
The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man, in every child is the potential for greatness. — Robert Kennedy
The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means. — Robert Kennedy
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
The Gross National Product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile. — Robert Kennedy
The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life. — 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
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
Those who challenge the law in one or another of its aspects weaken the whole legal structure of society. For one man to disobey a law he does not like is to invite others to disobey another law which he may regard as indispensable to his own livelihood - or life. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Quotes About World
Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills... Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man — Robert Kennedy
What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet... — Robert Kennedy
Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey. On the contrary, great change dominates the world, and unless we move with change we will become its victims. — Robert Kennedy
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. — Robert Kennedy
All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity. — Robert Kennedy
All of us will ultimately be judged on the effort we have contributed to building a new world 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
Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change. — Robert Kennedy
I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world. — Robert Kennedy
American books reflect our common heritage with many other nations and their influence upon our culture. The influences are endless, linking us with the rest of the world. Thus, they are good ambassadors for us. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Quotes About Freedom
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes. — Robert Kennedy
The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society. — Robert Kennedy
If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity. — Robert Kennedy
The leaders of the world face no greater task than that of avoiding nuclear war. While preserving the cause of freedom, we must seek abolition of war through programs of general and complete disarmament. The Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 represents a significant beginning in this immense undertaking. — 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
Communism everywhere has paid the price of rigidity and dogmatism. Freedom has the strength of compassion and flexibility. It has, above all, the strength of intellectual honesty. — 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
If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. — 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
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
Robert Kennedy Quotes About People
One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time. — 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
People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him. — Robert Kennedy
Courage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage that they would stand up, that they could be counted on. — Robert Kennedy
Every dictatorship has ultimately strangled in the web of repression it wove for its people, making mistakes that could not be corrected because criticism was prohibited. — Robert Kennedy
Each nation has different obstacles and different goals, shaped by the vagaries of history and of experience. Yet as I talk to young people around the world I am impressed not by the diversity but by the closeness of their goals, their desires and their concerns and their hope for the future. — Robert Kennedy
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
I'm tired of chasing people. — Robert Kennedy
It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants. — 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
Robert Kennedy Quotes About Society
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. — 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
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. — 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
Where aspirations outstrip opportunities, law-abiding society becomes the victim. Attitudes of contempt toward the law are forged in this crucible and form the inner core of the beliefs of organized adult crime. — Robert Kennedy
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
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
No one needs to tell me about the importance of the free press in a democratic society or about the essential role a newspaper can play in its community. — 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
The ultimate relationship between justice and law will be an eternal subject for speculation and analysis. But it may be said that in a democratic society, law is the form which free men give to justice. — Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy Famous Quotes And Sayings
Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change. — Robert Kennedy
When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies... — Robert Kennedy
Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice. — Robert Kennedy
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 or lawlessness; but 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 they be black. — Robert Kennedy
Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope. — 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
The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society. — Robert Kennedy
What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents. — Robert Kennedy
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live. — Robert Kennedy
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. — Robert Kennedy
We can master change not though force or fear, but only though the free work of an understanding mind, though an openness to new knowledge and fresh outlooks, which can only strengthen the most fragile and most powerful of human gifts: the gift of reason. — Robert Kennedy
But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response? — 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
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
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
Together, we can make ourselves a nation that spends more on books than on bombs, more on hospitals than the terrible tools of war, more on decent houses than military aircraft. — Robert Kennedy
The gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them ... It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of thier education, or the joy of their play. — 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
If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none. — Robert Kennedy
There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not. — Robert Kennedy
At the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man...is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, exist for that person's benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society. — 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
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 love this city. If I am elected, I'll move the White House to San Francisco. Everybody's so friendly. — Robert Kennedy
I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and I have such strong feelings about what must be done. — Robert Kennedy
My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by the fact that I was seventh of nine children. — Robert Kennedy
Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws--but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each and every one of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted--when we tolerate what we know to be wrong--when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened--when we fail to speak up and speak out--we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice. — 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
Good union leaders make excellent public leaders in the legislative and executive branches. — 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
I love this city. If I'm elected, I will move the White House to San Francisco. I went to Fisherman's Wharf and they even let me into Allioto`s. It may be Baghdad by the Bay to you, but to me it's Resurrection City — Robert Kennedy
Men and women with freed minds may often be mistaken, but they are seldom fooled. They may be influenced, but they cannot be intimidated. They may be perplexed, but they will never be lost. — Robert Kennedy
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
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 [next] priority for change the first element of a new politics for the United States is in our policy toward the world. Too much and for too long, we have acted as if our great military might and wealth could bring about an American solution to every world problem. — 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
One of the great creative statesmen of our age was Franklin Roosevelt. He was creative precisely because he preferred experiment to ideology. — Robert Kennedy
One can find a squalid America as easily as a scenic America; a bitter, hopeless America as easily as the confident America of polyethylene wrapping, new cars, and camping trips in the summer. — Robert Kennedy
I believe that as long as a single man may try, any unjustifiable barrier against his efforts is a barrier against mankind. — Robert Kennedy
We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price. — Robert Kennedy
Each generation makes it's own accounting to its children. — Robert Kennedy
Punishment is not prevention. History offers cold comfort to those who think grievance and despair can be subdued by force. — Robert Kennedy
Lawyers have their duties as citizens, but they also have special duties as lawyers. Their obligations go far deeper than earning a living as specialists in corporation or tax law. They have a continuing responsibility to uphold the fundamental principles of justice from which the law cannot depart. — Robert Kennedy
Religion is a salve for confusion and misdirection. — 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
Science began as one of the noblest expressions of man's reason. It will continue to serve humanity so long as it never forgets that human beings remain the heart of its purpose. — Robert Kennedy
The poor man looks upon the law as an enemy, not as a friend. For him, the law is always taking something away. — Robert Kennedy
I think there is an obligation on the part of all of us to stay informed and aware. — Robert Kennedy
I come from a family that has always emphasized and enjoyed sports - golf, tennis, football, baseball and the rest. — Robert Kennedy
In truth, the world is now a seamless web from which no nation, large or small, young or old, can disassociate itself. Every attitude and every action of every nation can affect the welfare and security of every other nation around the globe. — Robert Kennedy
We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. — Robert Kennedy
What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us. — Robert Kennedy
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
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. — Robert Kennedy
Some men see things as they are and ask, 'why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?'NB: This quote is a paraphrase from a similar quote by G. B. Shaw. — Robert Kennedy
Life Lessons by Robert Kennedy
Robert Kennedy taught the importance of standing up for what you believe in and having the courage to fight for justice and equality.
He also encouraged people to be kind and compassionate towards others and to recognize the value of diversity.
He believed in the power of education and the importance of helping those in need, and advocated for social change and progress.
Citation
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