Robert Kennedy

It certainly should not surprise us that a young person without any real stake in a legitimate occupation or career may get into trouble more easily. Such persons readily accept the idea that they have been unjustly deprived of money, status, and opportunity.

I have told friends and supporters who are urging me to run that I would not oppose President Johnson under any foreseeable circumstances.

No one needs to tell me about the importance of the free press in a democratic society or about the essential role a newspaper can play in its community.

In the long run, a flexible sentencing procedure which works to rehabilitate offenders offers the best hope in the majority of cases in the Federal courts.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort.

The poor man looks upon the law as an enemy, not as a friend. For him, the law is always taking something away.

President Kennedy's election was such an enlargement. It expanded religious freedom to include the highest office in the land. President Kennedy's administration was such an enlargement. It advanced the day when the bars of intolerance against all minority groups will be lifted, not only for the presidency, but for all aspects of our national life.

Since the days of Greece and Rome, when the word 'citizen' was a title of honor, we have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities.

We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product.

There has been far too much hypocrisy in the field of civil rights. It is easy enough to give rousing speeches or call for legislation which has no possibility of passage.

Desegregation of schools does not automatically transform them into better schools. It is only a step. The larger goal is to see that the education of our youth is not merely desegregated, but that it is excellent.

In the cases that come before the Department of Justice involving a wide range of unlawful activities, we see repeated evidence of family and community failures.

It is the right of government to protect the weak; it is the right of the weak to find in their courts fair treatment before the law.

We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price.

Satellite communications connect television screens in Japan with television cameras in England, and the distance of half a world loses its meaning.

Our generation was born during the turmoil following the First World War. That war marked the dividing line - at least for the Western World - between the comfortable security of the 19th century and the instability and flux of our own time.

Every American has the duty to obey the law and the right to expect that the law will be enforced.

Let me make it clear that the Youth Employment Opportunities Act of 1961 is not primarily concerned with delinquency prevention. Rather, it is designed to help all types of young men or women who suffer deficiencies of training or opportunity which keep them unemployed.

The right to vote is the easiest of all rights to grant.

It is easy to overlook the importance of the young in underdeveloped countries. It is the natural course for nations, and diplomats, and those who publish newspapers, to speak to the established order. Seeking out the young requires a conscious effort.