Robert Kennedy Quotes

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

The challenge of the unknown future is so much more exciting than the stories of the accomplished past.

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, and the taste of adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he's lived a certain number of years, he grows old because he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skins, but deserting his ideals wrinkles his soul. Preoccupation, fears, doubts, and despair are dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to what is beautiful, good, great and receptive to the messages of other men and women and nature and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul.

My countrymen: we have reached a turning point in our history. The choice is yours. Shall we venture into this brave new world, bright with possibilities, or retreat to the safety of our familiar but sterile past? I am for crossing the frontier.

Hungry for both fantasy and inspiration, readers crave protagonists who, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, triumph at the end of the day.

The child in me wanted to try out new things and do something different.

When we dare to hope for a certain outcome and take action after action toward that outcome, we're dealing with nothing less than the spirit of creativity itself.

There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

I'm excited about our rising generation.

Just because we cannot see clearly te end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.

Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey!

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change about you, but your dream will not. It will always be your link with the person, young and full of hope. If you hold on to it you may grow old but you will never be old. And that is the ultimate success

It is saying these things that keeps us from falling apart. And maybe by imagining these futures we can make them real, and maybe not, but either way we must imagine them. The light rushes out and floods in.

There is no security in following the call to adventure.

For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer. We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you. May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!

Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.

Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a tempermental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.

Send forth a tiny ripple of hope.

We live in a world where joy is possible, love is possible, happiness is possible; where all things are possible, if we're willing to take the time, take a chance, take a breath and step off the edge of everything that is for the sake of everything that might be.

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.