A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

Change before you have to.

There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis'. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity. Speech in Indianapolis, April 12, 1959

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (11 June 1962)

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Address to Latin American diplomats at the White House (12 March 1962)