Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 769 |
| AUTHOR: | John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63) |
| QUOTATION: | And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | President This is one of seven inscriptions carved on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery. He foreshadowed this remark earlier: “But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.”—Acceptance speech, Democratic national convention, Los Angeles, California, July 15, 1960, Vital Speeches of the Day, August 1, 1960, p. 611. |
| SUBJECTS: | Government—citizen participation |