Caroline Kennedy > Quotes

“Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals, and to imagine that together we can do great things.

In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.”
― Caroline Kennedy

“Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background and your duties in the middle distance and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not waht you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness - are you willing to do these things for even a day?

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front of you so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open - are you willing to do these things for even a day?

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world, - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death, - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas. And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.”
― Caroline Kennedy, A Family Christmas

“Our mothers are our first teachers, and we teach others the same lessons we learn from them. As a child, when your mother believes in you, you believe in yourself, and when that happens, there is nothing you can’t do. As a mother, that is the greatest gift we can give to a child.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“It's true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you'll find you've created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.”
― Caroline Kennedy

“I doubt women will be surprised that men write more often about the loss of face and the loss of power, while women tend to write about the loss of self.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“Falling in love is a series of moments in which the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Those moments are not continuous, but the sense of union with another person is just about the best thing there is.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“She Walks in Beauty Like the Night Of Cloudless Climes and Starry Skies”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“Youth OSIP MANDELSTAM Translated by W. S. Merwin Through all of youth I was looking for you without knowing what I was looking for or what to call you I think I did not even know I was looking how would I have known you when I saw you as I did time after time when you appeared to me as you did naked offering yourself entirely at that moment and you let me breathe you touch you taste you knowing no more than I did and only when I began to think of losing you did I recognize you when you were already part memory part distance remaining mine in the ways that I learn to miss you from what we cannot hold the stars are made”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“LOVE”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“A strange idea that one must say what one thinks in order to be understood.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“Let us strike hands as hearty friends; No more, no less; and friendship’s good: Only don’t keep in view ulterior ends, And points not understood In open treaty. Rise above Quibbles and shuffling off and on: Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love,— No, thank you, John.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“They’ll tell you they love you like stars in the West But along comes corn whiskey; they love it the best. Go,”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most. Women”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him. And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail, That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“During this and the next six sittings, starting with a quavering voice that grew stronger with time, Jacqueline unburdened herself as the tape machine also picked up the sounds of her lighting cigarettes, of ice cubes in glasses, dogs barking in the distance, trucks rumbling down N Street, and jets roaring overhead.”
― Caroline Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“Then shun, oh! shun that wretched state, And all the fawning flatt’rers hate: Value your selves, and men despise, You must be proud, if you’ll be wise.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“When I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships— with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most.”
― Caroline Kennedy

“So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands. And”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it by”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“Sonnet XLIII: How Do I Love Thee? ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

“WE ARE ALL AFRAID of being alone. To teenagers, the idea of being alone is almost as bad as the idea of dying, which at least has a certain romantic appeal.”
― Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems