Quotationary
Book

Modern

John F. Kennedy

1917–1963

President of the inaugural and the moon

Ask not is January 20, 1961, a sentence built to be memorized, with Sorensen in the drafting. The moon speech at Rice is a different instrument: we choose to go, not because it is easy. He was killed in Dallas before the decade he had named was out.

In the canon

  1. Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.Inaugural Address
  2. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.Address at Rice University

All voices