When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is...

It was never intended by the Founding Fathers that the President of the United States should be a ventriloquist’s dummy sitting on the lap of Congress.

We must dare to think ‘unthinkable’ thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to...

We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent.

I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.

To be a statesman, you must first get elected.

The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on [them].

The price of empire is America’s soul, and that price is too high.

The rapprochement of peoples is only possible when differences of culture and outlook are respected and appreciated rather than feared and condemned, when the common bond of human dignity is recognized as the essential bond...

There is an inevitable divergence between the world as it is and the world as men perceive it.

We must dare to think about unthinkable things because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life.

We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.

There has been a strong tradition in this country that it is not the function of the military to educate the public on political issues.

What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight,...

To avoid a nuclear war . . . you may think that’s pretentious but that’s its main goal.