Now, as never before, hundreds of millions of men and women—who had formerly believed that stoic resignation in the face of hunger and disease and darkness was the best one could could do—have come alive with a new sense that the means are at hand with which to make for themselves a better life.

We will not act prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of world-wide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth. But neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.

[T]he time is not far off when many nations in many parts of the world of many political shades and commitments will possess nuclear or even thermonuclear weapons.

We must recognize that every nation determines its policies in terms of its own interests.

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.

A nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future.

The Family of Man is more than three billion strong. It lives in more than one hundred nations. Most of its members are not white. Most of them are not Christians. Most of them know nothing about free enterprise, or due process of law or the Australian ballot.

Our nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.

World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor—it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.

We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad.