If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Robert KennedyRead
Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others.
Interpretation
Political freedoms are foundational to the development of other freedoms in society.
Robert Kennedy highlights the importance of political freedoms in the United States, suggesting that when individuals are afforded the right to express their political beliefs, it lays the groundwork for broader freedoms in various aspects of life. He underscores a belief that the liberty to engage in political discourse fosters an environment where other rights and freedoms can flourish.
In practice
During a speech on civil rights, I might use this quote to emphasize the connection between political and civil liberties.
If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants.
Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.
They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king.
The critic is a prisoner to his own experiences and perspectives, erroneously believing his limited experiences are the sum of all truth
Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
The idea, therefore, that religious faith is somehow a sacred human convention—distinguished, as it is, both by the extravagance of its claims and by the paucity of its evidence—is really too great a monstrosity to be appreciated in all its glory. Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible.
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