"He knows that law is the adhesive force in the cement of society, creating order out of chaos and coherence in place of anarchy. He knows that for one man to defy a law or court order he does not like is to invite others to defy those which they do not like, leading to a breakdown of all justice and all order. He knows, too, that every fellowman is entitled to be regarded with decency and treated with dignity. Any educated citizen who seeks to subvert the law, to suppress freedom, or to subject other human beings to acts that are less than human, degrades his heritage, ignores his learning, and betrays his obligation."
React to this quote
More by John F. Kennedy
See allResonant Thoughts
"he ancient philosophers... all of them assert that the elements, and those things which are called by them principles, are contraries, though they establish them without reason, as if they were compel…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"I will be candid. I believe God is a just God, rewarding and punishing us exactly as we act well or ill. I …"
— James Anthony Froude"There was something... total... something very undermining about the McGovern defeat... There was a very un…"
— Hunter S. Thompson"This matter of lynching would be a terrible thing even if it stopped with the lynching of men guilty of the…"
— Theodore Roosevelt"The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding …"
— Thomas Sowell"Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale ; then read this and th…"
— George MacDonald"Temple is an intensely moral creature. She has a passionate sense of right and wrong, for example, in regar…"
— Oliver Sacks