John F. Kennedy on Past
← Back to John F. Kennedy Profile
“My call is not to those who believe they belong to the past. My call is to those who believe in the future.”
Addressing a polarized political landscape in 1958, John F. Kennedy urged Loyola College alumni to transcend partisan divides and embrace collective responsibility for the future.
“Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
“There are those who regard this history of past strife and exile as better forgotten. But, to use the phrase of Yeats, let us not casually reduce "that great past to a trouble of fools." For we need not feel the bitterness of the past to discover its meaning for the present and the future.”