Quotes about first
page 26

“Maybe when we die, the first thing we’ll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise

Feeling

“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Fools, Funny, Success

“In the first few seconds an aching sadness wrenched his heart, but it soon gave way to a feeling of sweet disquiet, the excitement of gypsy wanderlust”

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) Russian author primarily known for his novel "Master and Margarita"

Sadness, Way, Feeling, Heart

“It was the first honest emotional connection I'd had in a while. So I immediately panicked and had to leave.”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

“The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Animals

“Well, first you have to be very, very funny. I have realized that it is essential for a boy to be funny. Otherwise, what is the point in a boy?”

Jaclyn Moriarty (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Year of Secret Assignments

Boy

“It's human; we all put self interest first.”

Euripidés Medea

Source: Medea

“A lot of people seem nice when you first meet them. Then later you find out that they are evil villains who plan to take over the world.”

Dan Gutman (1954) American children's writer

Source: Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

People, World, Evil

“Now I wish she'd never broken any of her rules. I understood why she held to them so hard. Once you broke the first one, they all broke, one by one, like firecrackers exploding in your face in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life.”

Umberto Eco book The Island of the Day Before

Source: The Island of the Day Before

Life, Death, Hate, World

“If man be sensible and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed,
counts at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly will
give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Life, Food, Lying

“When first love ends, most people eventually know there will be more to come. They are not through with love. Love is not through with them. It will never be the same as the first, but it will be better in different ways.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Love, People, Way

“When you know what you're against you have taken the first step to discovering what you're for.”

Salman Rushdie The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Source: The Ground Beneath Her Feet

“I'll be the way I was when I first met him. Then maybe he'll like me again. I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

Love, People, Way

“Great. She shook her head. Not only am I having conversations with myself, but now I'm refusing to talk to me. This has got to be the first sign of madness.”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

Madness

“Firsts were important. But I was pretty sure lasts were even more important.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

“Blah, blah, blah. Demon boy, I can't speak that language. Furthermore, I don't want to pollute my brain by learning it. So it's time for you to learn mine. First lesson-I'm Say-been. I'm oft described as byoo-tee-full and mah-jest'ick.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

Boy, Learning, Time

“The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.”

Helen Oyeyemi book Boy, Snow, Bird

Source: Boy, Snow, Bird

Coffee

“There was a young lady named Mae
Who smoked without stopping all day;
As pack followed pack,
Her lungs first turned black,
And eventually rotted away.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer

“I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Interview http://www.expectingrain.com/dok/int/shelton1978.07.29.html with Robert Shelton, Melody Maker (29 July 1978)

“She can be anything, Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. And so can you.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Dreamland (2000)
Source: Wir sehen uns im Traumland

“me: why is it upset? shouldn't it be downset?
gideon: i will file a lawsuit against the dictionaries first thing tomorrow morning. we're going to tear merriam a new asshole and throw webster inside of it.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Tear

“Torture?” she asked with a laugh. “My first piece of information I’ll divulge to you? I wouldn’t recommend trying to torture me. I dislike it and grow sulky under pincers.
It’s a fault.”

Kresley Cole book The Warlord Wants Forever

Source: The Warlord Wants Forever

“And the first rude sketch that the world has seen
was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it art?”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The Conundrum of the Workshops, Stanza 1 (1890).
Other works
Source: The Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses
Context: When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It's pretty, but is it Art?”

World, Art, Heart, Joy

“The more you think about things, the weirder they seem. Take this milk. Why do we drink COW milk?? Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, 'I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!'?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

Guy, Drink, Thinking

“Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Wisdom, Problem, Time, Tea

“But there's always a first time for everything”

Melissa de la Cruz Blue Bloods

Source: Blue Bloods

Time

“Late this evening I looked at the sky and saw the stars. I felt as if it was the first time I had ever looked at them.
I was stunned.
The stars made an extraordinary impression on me”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

Source: Journal 1970-1986

Star, Time

“After a minute, Gat leaned back and let me go first. “Not because you’re a girl but because I’m a good person,” he told me.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Girl, Personality

“Never make the first move." - Loor (The Rivers of Zadaa)”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“This is me.’" He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Understanding

“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“You're awake," he said.
"Phresine is not," pointed out the queen.
"Oh?"
"You gave her lethium."
"She gave it to me first.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“There's a hazardous sadness to the first sounds of someone else's work in the morning; it's as if stillness experiences pain in being broken.”

Jonathan Franzen book Freedom

Source: Freedom

Pain, Sadness

“In order for one to learn the important lessons of life, one must first overcome a fear each day.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life, Fear, Learning

“Reading is like breathing. If you take it away, first I become antsy, then violent.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Reading

“Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said 'I think I’ll drink whatever comes out of these when I squeeze ’em?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Guy, Drink, Thinking

“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”

Frantz Fanon book The Wretched of the Earth

Source: The Wretched of the Earth

People

“The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas.
The latter will get you to heaven.
Take your pick.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

God

“Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?”

Jack Finney book Time and Again

Source: Time and Again

Books, Feeling, Time, Reading

“This is the first adventure I’ve survived without being kidnapped, attacked, knocked unconscious or possessed by evil spirits. A ripped blouse? Ruined skirt? Bad hair? I’d call this progress. ~Jaime Vegas”

Kelley Armstrong book No Humans Involved

Source: No Humans Involved

Evil

“I am an author of Christian Fantasy. My first 7 books were Christian Romance, but I came over to the Dark Side when I heard there were cookies.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Books

“And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Pain

“I'm not sure you're quite sensible of the honor I'm doing you," Jace said. "you'll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute.""Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Anonymous ancient proverb, wrongly attributed to Euripides. The version here is quoted as a "heathen proverb" in Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) by William Anderson Scott. The origin of the misattribution to Euripides is unknown. Several variants are quoted in ancient texts, as follows. Variants and derived paraphrases: For cunningly of old was the celebrated saying revealed: evil sometimes seems good to a man whose mind a god leads to destruction. Sophocles, Antigone 620-3, a play pre-dating any of Euripides' surviving plays. An ancient commentary explains the passage as a paraphrase of the following, from another, earlier poet. When a god plans harm against a man, he first damages the mind of the man he is plotting against. Quoted in the scholia vetera to Sophocles' Antigone 620ff., without attribution. The meter (iambic trimeter) suggests that the source of the quotation is a tragic play. For whenever the anger of divine spirits harms someone, it first does this: it steals away his mind and good sense, and turns his thought to foolishness, so that he should know nothing of his mistakes. Attributed to "some of the old poets" by Lycurgus of Athens in his Oratio In Leocratem [Oration Against Leocrates], section 92. Again, the meter suggests that the source is a tragic play. These lines are misattributed to the much earlier semi-mythical statesman Lycurgus of Sparta in a footnote of recent editions of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and other works. The gods do nothing until they have blinded the minds of the wicked. Variant in 'Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1906), compiled by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 433. Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad. Publilius Syrus, Maxim 911 The devil when he purports any evil against man, first perverts his mind. As quoted by Athenagoras of Athens [citation needed] quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius. "Whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he first sends mad"; neo-Latin version. Similar wording is found in James Duport's Homeri Gnomologia (1660), p. 234. "A maxim of obscure origin which may have been invented in Cambridge about 1640" -- Taylor, The Proverb (1931). Probably a variant of the line "He whom the gods love dies young", derived from Menander's play The Double Deceiver via Plautus (Bacchides 816-7). quem (or quos) Deus perdere vult, dementat prius. Whom God wishes to destroy, he first sends mad. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. This variant is spoken by Prometheus, in The Masque of Pandora (1875) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. As quoted in George Fox Interpreted: The Religion, Revelations, Motives and Mission of George Fox (1881) by Thomas Ellwood Longshore, p. 154 Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad. As quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations 16th edition (1992) Nor do the gods appear in warrior's armour clad To strike them down with sword and spear Those whom they would destroy They first make mad. Bhartṛhari, 7th c. AD; as quoted in John Brough,Poems from the Sanskrit, (1968), p, 67 vināśakāle viparītabuddhiḥ Sanskrit Saying (also in Jatak katha): "When a man is to be destroyed, his intelligence becomes self-destructive." Modern derivatives: The proverb's meaning is changed in many English versions from the 20th and 21st centuries that start with the proverb's first half (through "they") and then end with a phrase that replaces "first make mad" or "make mad." Such versions can be found at Internet search engines by using either of the two keyword phrases that are on Page 2 and Page 4 of the webpage " Pick any Wrong Card http://www.bu.edu/av/celop2/not_ESL/pick_any_wrong_card.pdf." The rest of that webpage is frameworks that induce a reader to compose new variations on this proverb. Misattributed

God, Madness

“One more thing," Jace said. "Is there a holy place around here?"
“Good idea. If you're going to take on a lair of vampires by yourself, you'd better pray first.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Idea

“TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT. This is the equivalent of saying "deeds, and not words, are what count most.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

World

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

“if love doesnt come first and linger after, if love cant wait and endure disappointment and seperation, then its not love.”

Robin Hobb (1952) American fiction writer (pseudonym)

Source: Golden Fool

Love, Disappointment, Waiting

“I've faked orgasms before, but this is the first time I've faked not having an orgasm.”

Sarah Kane book Crave

Source: Crave

Time

“She brooded and bit her rich lips: my soul began its first sink into her, deep, heady, lost; like drowning in a witches' brew, Keltic, sorcerous, starlike.”

Jack Kerouac book Maggie Cassidy

Source: Maggie Cassidy

Soul

“Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Tough Guide To Fantasyland

Source: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

World

“The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Problem, Universe

“Wikipedia is the first place I go when I'm looking for knowledge… or when I want to create some.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Knowledge

“Well, I don't like the first bit and I don't know the last bit. So I'm really hoping the middle bit is exceptional.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Hope

“I can let you in, Eva. I’m trying. But your first response when I screw up is to run away. You do it every time and I can’t stand feeling like any moment I’m going to do or say something wrong and you’re going to bolt.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Feeling, Time

“My first album will be titled”

Cassandra Clare book The Shadowhunter's Codex

Source: The Shadowhunter's Codex

“When shall we pass a day alone? I have had a thousand kisses, for which with my whole soul I thank love - but if you should deny me the thousand and first - 'twould put me to the proof how great a misery I could live through.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Love, Soul, Kiss

“I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Richard Ames; chapter 3, p. 27
Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

Happiness, Chance, Reading

“Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Beauty, Drink, Time

“This thing about looking for someone less different… It only really worked, he realized, if you were convinced that being you wasn't so bad in the first place.”

Nick Hornby About a Boy

Source: About a Boy

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Hate

“CALVIN:
When I grow up I want to be an inventor. First I will invent a time machine. Then I'll come back to yesterday and take myself to tomorrow and skip this dumb assignment.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Time

“Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 15: Threats

Bird, Time

“You have to salvage what you can, even if you're the one who buried it in the first place.”

Kelly Link (1969) American writer

Source: Pretty Monsters: Stories

“My capacity for happiness," he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happiness

“The Ancient Egyptians were not fools, Carter. They built the pyramids. They created the first great nation state. Their civilization lasted thousands of years.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And now they’re gone.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Fools

“I don't like girls in the daytime,' he said shortly, and then thinking this a bit abrupt, he added: 'But I like you.' He cleared his throat. 'I like you first and second and third.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Girl, Thinking

“Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

2000s, There Is No God (2005)

God, People, Memory, Time

“In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Fear, Heart, Country

“At first I was glad for the help. My freshmen English class, "Mythology and Archetypal Experience," confounded me.

I didn't understand why we couldn't just read books without forcing contorted interpretations on then”

Alison Bechdel (1960) American cartoonist, author

Source: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Books, Understanding, Reading, Help

“But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Dreams, Reading

“I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Life

“He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled…”

Ernest Hemingway book Across the River and into the Trees

Source: Across the River and into the Trees

Smile, Girl

“For surely a king is first a man. And so it must follow that a king does as all men do: the best he can.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: The Storyteller's Daughter: A Retelling of the Arabian Nights

Men

“Sokka: "My first girlfriend turned into the moon."
Zuko: "That's tough buddy.”

Michael Dante DiMartino (1974) American animator

“That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Truth, Faith, Error

“As soon as a manhas his guard up. he will not fall in love or get attached the only way he'll get attached is if you lower his guard first.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

Love, Way

“When she smiles, it feels like the first warm day of March-- after an eternity of snow, when you suddenly remember how summer feels on the backs of your bare calves & in the part of your hair.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Smile, Feeling, Summer, Parting

“I’m going to be exposed, aren’t I? (Acheron)
I don’t know. You planning on dropping your pants around me? If so, warn me first. I don’t want to go blind. (Savitar)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“Men don’t realize that if we’re sleeping with them on the first date, we’re probably not interested in seeing them again either.”

Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host

Men, Sleep

“First you buy me a mocha. Then you let me help you hide a body. Now you take me to a biker clubhouse. Best. Day. Ever.”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Source: Omens

Help

“It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion.”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

“At first she beckoned and lured one into her world; then, she blurred the passageways, confused all the images, as if to elude detection.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Source: A Spy in the House of Love

World

“The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it.”

Abbie Hoffman book Steal This Book

Spoken to police immediately prior to his arrest at the Lincoln Hotel Restaurant in Chicago (August 1968), quoting himself in "Creating the Perfect Mess" (1 September 1968) in Revolution for the Hell of It (1968); also quoted in Abbie Hoffman : American Rebel (1992) by Marty Jezer.
Source: Steal This Book
Context: The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going.

“I still don't get it" Coach Hedge muttered as they roamed the centre aisle. "They named a whole town after Leo's table?"
"I think the town was here first, Coach" Nico said.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Thinking

“Reckless,” he said. “You know, when I first showed up at the Institute, Alec called me reckless so many times that I went and looked it up in the dictionary”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Time

“My mother says men are different from us. She says we want to be in love, but only with the one we want; a man needs to be in love, but he will love the first woman to tie a string to his heart. - Egwene, speaking to Elayne”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Love, Men, Heart

“Being afraid something is true is accepting the possibility. Accepting the possibility is the first step to believing.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

“Love made us partners in narcissism, and we talked ceaselessly about how close we were, how perfect our connection was, like we were the first people in history to ever get it exactly right.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Love, People, History, Perfection

“Oh darling, don't be bitter. It's the first instinct of the weak.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself - simply an urge not to be. This disgusting, hostile and unlovely world was not made for me, nor I for it.”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

Source: Moab Is My Washpot

Hostility, World, Time

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Life