John F. Kennedy Quotes

[E]very man, everywhere, should be free to develop his talents to their full potential - unhampered by arbitrary barriers of race or birth or income.

Give men opportunity and opportunity will give you men.

I do not say that all men are equal in their ability, character and motivation. I do say that every American should be given a fair chance to develop all the talents they may have.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

It's not a meritocracy until everyone starts with the same opportunities, is it?

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete.

We are building a country where a person's prospects are determined by their own initiative and hard work and not by the color of their skin, place of birth, gender, language, or income of their parents.

I want my kids to grow up in a world where everybody gets a fair shot.

The erosion of equal opportunity is among the greatest threats to our exceptionalism as a nation. But it also provides us with an exciting and historic opportunity: to help more people than ever achieve the American Dream.

If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.

America is not another word for Opportunity to all her sons.

All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

We live in a moment when the dream of equal opportunity is within reach.

I believe this country was built on a simple promise: that each of us deserves a fair shot.

Everybody has equal opportunity, and I think that is true for everything.

We can't accept that it's O.K. if only some kids get to go to college.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

That's what liberalism is all about, is promoting incompetence on the basis it's fair, because people would be the best if they weren't discriminated against.