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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1268
AUTHOR: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63)
QUOTATION: For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinions without the discomfort of thought.
ATTRIBUTION: President JOHN F. KENNEDY, commencement address at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, p. 234.
SUBJECTS: Opinions