In tracking down a quote from President Kennedy for a recent diary I came across additional quotes from him as well as others that seem prescient to the politics of today. So, piggybacking on Lawrence O. and John Stewart's use of FDR ( see today's congenitalefty diary ) here are additional quotes from the past that could have come from a present day observer ( had they had the intellect, wit and wisdom of the original) . When you read them what issue, candidate, campaign strategy, etc., comes to mind?
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others." JFK
"In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people." FDR
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubt of today." FDR
"There is nothing I love as much as a good fight." FDR
"We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out." FDR
"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon." FDR
" Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressman and government officials, but the voters of this country." FDR
"It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson
"To often we ... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." JFK
"Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource." JFK
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." Abraham Lincoln