Theodore C. Sorensen

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

“The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

“For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.”

“We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.”

“We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier.”

“Decision-making is not a solitary process.”

“A politician's words are his stock-in-trade.”

“The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our American system.”

“I saw my job as helping the president to be his own best speechwriter.”

“I learned that the only way to write a good speech is to know the man you are writing for.”

“Secrecy, in the long run, is not a source of strength, but a source of weakness.”

“Politics is a jungle, and it's a jungle that is getting more and more dangerous.”

“I don't think that there's any great mystery about what it takes to be a good speechwriter. I think it is the same thing that it takes to be a good writer, period.”