To the extent that artists struggle to express beauty in form and color and sound, to the extent that they write about man's struggle with nature and society, or himself, to that extent they strike a responsive chord in all humanity.

National Cultural Center, November 29, 1962

Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

National Cultural Center, November 29, 1962

Moreover, as a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts, for art is the great democrat calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. The mere accumulation of wealth and power is available to the dictator and the democrat alike. What freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society.

National Cultural Center, November 29, 1962

Robert Frost said it: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Remarks at Amherst College, October 26, 1963