Robert Kennedy

While I have finals, I'm gonna leave you all with some quotes from the late Senator and 1968 Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy:
"Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
--Robert F. Kennedy, after George Bernard Shaw

Ripple of Hope
"Few will have the greatness to bend history; 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 ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. 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, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"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 ...
"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."
Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968

1968 Presidential Campaign
"I think we can end the divisions within the United States. What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis. And that what has been going on with the United States over the period of that last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions - whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or in the war in Vietnam - that we can work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running."
California Victory Speech, Los Angeles, California, June 4, 1968

Challenge
"On this generation of Americans falls the burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and are equal before the law. 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."
Speech, Law Day Exercises of the University of Georgia Law School, May 6, 1961

Citizenship
"Since the days of Greece and Rome when the word 'citizen' was a title of honor, we have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities. And today, as never before in the free world, responsibility is the greatest right of citizenship and service is the greatest of freedom's privileges."
Speech, University of San Francisco Law School, San Francisco, California, September 29, 1962

Democracy
"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."
Statement on Vietnam, February 19, 1966

The Democratic Party
"And as long as America must choose, that long will there be a need and a place for the Democratic Party. We Democrats can run on our record but we cannot rest on it. We will win if we continue to take the initiative and if we carry the message of hope and action throughout the country. Alexander Smith once said, 'A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.' Let us continue to plant, and our children shall reap the harvest. That is our destiny as Democrats."
Testimonial Dinner for Lieutenant Governor Patrick J. Lucey of Wisconsin, August 15, 1965

Dissent
"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."
Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967

Equality
"We must recognize the full human equality of all our people - before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this not because it is economically advantageous - although it is; not because the laws of God and man command it - although they do command it; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do."
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

The Future
"The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present."
Address, Seattle World's Fair, August 7, 1962
"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."
Address, University of California at Berkeley, October 22, 1966

Greatness
"Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly."
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

Nations
"Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others. What is important is that all nations must march toward a increasing freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society strong and flexible enough to meet the demands of all of its own people, and a world of immense and dizzying change.
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

Poverty
"I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil."
Speech, Athens, Georgia, May 6, 1961

Quality of Life
"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It 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 tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968

Violence and Lawlessness
"What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
"No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
"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."
On the Mindless Menace of Violence, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968

Voice of the People
"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."
Address, New York City, January 22, 1963

Youth
"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 imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease."
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

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I'll be back tomorrow afternoon blogging from my dial-up connection in the Ville.