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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1740
AUTHOR: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)
QUOTATION: First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth…. I believe we should go to the moon. But … there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful.
ATTRIBUTION: President JOHN F. KENNEDY, special message to a joint session of Congress on urgent national needs, May 25, 1961.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 404, 405.
SUBJECTS: Space exploration