While the world is remembering the way President John F. Kennedy died this week –in a horrible, vicious attack that deprived the nation of his inspirational leadership – we’d like to remember the former president for his spoken words.

Kennedy’s speeches, which often referred to history, philosophy, psychology and government theory, seemed to hinge on the importance of freedom and liberty. They revealed his keen intellect and always reflected his hope in the future. Not only a great orator, but also a successful author, Kennedy conveyed in his speeches his deep awareness of past and current world events, melding them in a way that was no-nonsense and easy to understand. Famed speechwriter Ted Sorensen may have helped write Kennedy’s speeches, but they were a team, the late Sorenson said, with Sorensen putting on paper what Kennedy thought and believed.

And Kennedy thought and believed big, meeting the challenges of the Russian nuclear threat and civil rights. He was inspirational not just for how he delivered the speech, but because of the substance embedded within.

Below are a few excerpts, which are available in their entirety and worthy of further exploration, on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum’s website. These short snippets reveal how timeless his insights were, and how uncannily relevant they still are in the ongoing fight to keep liberty alive.

– John Balentine, managing editor

• Excerpt from a speech addressing the 1960 Democratic National Convention, July 15, 1960:

“An urban population explosion has overcrowded our schools, cluttered up our suburbs, and increased the squalor of our slums.?A peaceful revolution for human rights – demanding an end to racial discrimination in all parts of our community life – has strained at the leashes imposed by timid executive leadership.?A medical revolution has extended the life of our elder citizens without providing the dignity and security those later years deserve. And a revolution of automation finds machines replacing men in the mines and mills of America, without replacing their incomes or their training or their needs to pay the family doctor, grocer and landlord.

There has also been a change – a slippage – in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drought and famine have withered a field of ideas. Blight has descended on our regulatory agencies – and a dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America – in the payola mentality, the expense account way of life, the confusion between what is legal and what is right. Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose.?It is a time, in short, for a new generation of leadership – new men to cope with new problems and new opportunities.?All over the world, particularly in the newer nations, young men are coming to power – men who are not bound by the traditions of the past, men who are not blinded by the old fears and hates and rivalries, young men who can cast off the old slogans and delusions and suspicions.”

• Excerpts from Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

…

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. ??

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. ??

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” ?

• Excerpts from an Address before a Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961:

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish…

This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.?New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further – unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”

…

“Let me emphasize one point: that we are determined, as a nation in 1961 that freedom shall survive and succeed – and whatever the peril and set-backs, we have some very large advantages. The first is the simple fact that we are on the side of liberty – and since the beginning of history, and particularly since the end of the Second World War, liberty has been winning out all over the globe.”

…

“No formal agenda is planned and no negotiations will be undertaken; but we will make clear America’s enduring concern is for both peace and freedom – that we are anxious to live in harmony with the Russian people – that we seek no conquests, no satellites, no riches – that we seek only the day when ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’”

• Excerpts from the televised Report to the American People, June 11, 1963:

“Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.?

It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal.

It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.”

…

“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.?We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to negroes? Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.”

• Excerpt from remarks at the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963:

“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum.’ Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’… There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin…All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’”