John F. Kennedy Quotes

The goal of my work is to help assure that we can create a world of abundance in which we meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child.

Bend everything toward improving the standard of living of the people.

What I am interested in is to help this grand President of ours feed the hungry and clothe the naked and provide work for the idle of every race and creed

The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on AFDC, will now grow to a clear majority of the U.S. population.

Vote for me and I will ensure that everyone gets enough to eat and a place to stay.

More combat planes, missiles and soldiers won't provide additional bread for our families, desks for our schools, or medicine for our clinics.

The hallmark of a healthy society has always been measured by how it cares for the disadvantaged.

Shouldn't everybody join hands to give the basic minimum - food, education and health - to the entire population?

… poor people deserve access to food, education, housing, and medical services

Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve?

We should stand up for those who can't protect themselves. Support kids and families who can't support themselves.

Where America has got to move is not growth for the sake of growth, but it's got to move to a society that provides a high quality of life for all of our people. In other words, if people have health care as a right, as do the people of every other major country, then there's less worry about growth. If people have educational opportunity and their kids can go to college and they have child care, then there's less worry about growth for the sake of growth.

The quality of a society will be judged by what the least privileged in it achieves.

We shouldn't turn the safety net into a hammock. It should actually be a safety net.

It has been said that a country’s greatness can be measured by what it does for its unfortunates. By that criterion Canada certainly does not stand in the forefront of the nations of the world although there are signs that we are becoming conscious of our deficiencies and are determined to atone for lost time.

There is no country on earth that has done more for our own poor and for the poor around the world. We are not the ones that need to be targeted.

People need to remember that to balance the federal budget off the backs of the poorest people in the country is simply unacceptable. You don't pull feeding tubes from people. You don't pull the wheelchair out from under the child with muscular dystrophy.

The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether, as Franklin Roosevelt said, we provide enough for those who have too little.

We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we've got to go forward in the fight to make that happen.

The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.

Our motto should be: let us make peace so that we can concentrate on the really important work that needs to be done. That is, alleviating the plight of the poor and the defenceless, for as long as most of humanity feels the pain of poverty we all remain prisoners.

I want to work for the poor in my country.

Poverty calls us to sow hope.... Poverty is the flesh of the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those unjust social structures.

We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.

I am going to do my best to try to create a country in which children are not living in poverty, in which kids can go to college, in which old people have health care. Will I succeed? I can't guarantee you that, but I can tell you that from a human point of view it is better to show up than to give up.