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Action(s)
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Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence... Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation...
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she) sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
-Robert Francis Kennedy, speech at Day of Affirmation, University of Capetown, South Africa
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Ambition
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We should, I believe, beware of the pitfalls described by Taine: 'Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree. A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room.' We have to get out of this room.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment, 'Stay, thou art so fair.'
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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America
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Our Gross National Product now is over 800 billion dollars a year.
But that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage,… special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them,… the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl,… napalm,… nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities,… the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learnings, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.
It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.
www.jfklibrary.org
-Robert Francis Kennedy, Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968
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Apathy
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Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws--but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each and every one of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted--when we tolerate what we know to be wrong--when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened--when we fail to speak up and speak out--we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Bravery
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Moral courage is a more rare commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Change
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Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator and change has enemies.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Dissent
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One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Diversity
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Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Dreams
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There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Equality
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If any man claims the Negro should be content ... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Freedom
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Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Imagination
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Some men see things as they are and ask, 'why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?'
NB: This quote is a paraphrase from a similar quote by G. B. Shaw.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Justice
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It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Success & Failure
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Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Tolerance
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What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
-Robert Francis Kennedy
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Books by and about Robert Francis Kennedy