1961

For of those to whom much is given, much is required.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.

1961

★ 7.2

Essay

James Baldwin

1961

★ 7.0

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 7.0

Speech · Presidential farewell address · Political speech

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1961

★ 6.9

Song · Pop

Wise men say Only fools rush in But I can't help Falling in love with you

Elvis Presley

Can't Help Falling in Love · 1961

★ 5.5

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish...in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

I fought the law, and the law won.

1961

★ 5.3

Rock and roll

The Crickets

I Fought the Law · 1961

★ 5.3

Sociology

There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.

Jane Jacobs

The Death and Life of Great American Cities · 1961

★ 5.2

Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?

John Cage

1961

★ 5.2

Poem

I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. I have wasted my life.

James Arlington Wright

1961

★ 5.1

Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 4.5

Barry Goldwater

1961

★ 4.4

I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!

Paul Varjak

Breakfast at Tiffany's · 1961

★ 4.0

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

Fidel Castro

1961

★ 3.9

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

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 3.9

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

Ronald Reagan

1961

★ 3.8

Film · Drama (film) · Musical (film) · Drama · Musical

I feel pretty, Oh, so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and gay, And I pity Any girl who isn't me today.

Maria (West Side Story)

West Side Story · 1961

★ 3.8

Anti-colonial literature · Political literature

Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them.

Frantz Fanon

The Wretched of the Earth · 1961

★ 3.7

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

James Baldwin

1961

★ 3.7

Sermon

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1961

★ 3.7

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage.

1961

★ 3.7

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Anti-colonial literature · Political literature

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 3.7

When I search for man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders.

Frantz Fanon

The Wretched of the Earth · 1961

★ 3.6

Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

Joan Didion

Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power · 1961

★ 3.6

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

Joan Didion

Vogue · 1961

★ 3.6

Film · Drama (film) · Musical (film) · Drama · Musical

I like to be in America, OK by me in America, Everything free in America.

Anita

West Side Story · 1961

★ 3.6

To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent.

Joan Didion

1961

★ 3.5

Poem

We never have despair without some small hope.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

1961

★ 3.5

Scientific literature

Not in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born.

Robert Ardrey

1961

★ 3.5

Interview · Magazine

I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.

William F. Buckley

1961

★ 3.5

I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is. I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

Claes Oldenburg

1961

★ 3.5

Novel

Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.

Joseph Heller

Catch-22 · 1961

★ 2.7

Did I tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am?

Holly Golightly

Breakfast at Tiffany's · 1961

★ 2.2

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

C.S. Lewis

A Grief Observed · 1961

★ 2.1

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 2.1

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

1961

★ 2.1

Promise me one thing: don't take me home until I'm drunk—until I'm very drunk indeed.

Holly Golightly

Breakfast at Tiffany's · 1961

★ 2.1

You know what's gonna happen to you? I am gonna march you over to the zoo and feed you to the yak.

Mag Wildwood

Breakfast at Tiffany's · 1961

★ 2.1