Flipping through a back-issue of Esquire (Jan 2010) recently, I came across an article with quotes from the Kennedy brothers (John (Jack), Robert (Bobby), and Ted (Edward)).  A stunning picture of JFK in shirt and tie with cufflinks smoking a cigar caught my eye, and the article’s quotations didn’t disappoint.  From the man who ordered his press secretary to find him 1000+ H. Upmann Petit Upmann Cuban cigars before signing the Cuban trade embargo, you can expect some interesting quotations.  Here are a few I thought The Aspiring Gentleman readership would enjoy.

• We were to try harder than anyone else.  We might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best.  After you have done the best you can, to hell with it.  -RFK, 1965
• Sometimes people think that because you have money and position you are immune from the human experience.  But I can feel as lonesome and lost as the next man when I turn the key in the door and go into an empty house that is usually full of kids and dogs.  -RFK, late sixties
• There is always inequity in life.  Some men are killed in war, some are wounded, and some never leave the country.  Some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco.  It’s very hard, in military or in personal life, to ensure complete equality.  Life is unfair.  -JFK, March 1962
• It was easy–they sank my boat.  -JFK, to a high school student who asked him how he had become a war hero, 1962
• The advice of those who were brought in on the executive branch was unanimous, and the advice was wrong.  And I was responsible.  -JFK, after the Bay of Pigs invasion
• If we solve the Berlin problem without war, Cuba will look pretty small.  And if there is a war, Cuba won’t matter much, either.  -JFK, 1962