John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963) is perhaps the most iconic American political figure of all time. Rather than try to truncate his life story into a few paragraphs, better he be remembered by his own words:

At a time when they could be exploring how more efficiency and better prices could be obtained ... a few gigantic corporations have decided to increase prices in ruthless disregard of their public responsibilities.
(April 11, 1962, regarding the steel crisis and the steel companies' reneging on their promise not to raise prices)

Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.

I want to emphasize in the great concentration which we now place upon scientists and engineers how much we still need the men and women educated in the liberal tradition, willing to take the long look, undisturbed by prejudices and slogans of the moment, who attempt to make an honest judgment on difficult events.

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

Conformity is the enemy of thought and the jailer of freedom.

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

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.