Sacrifice

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 fof the world:  ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice that we ask of you.  With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

Honest people know that the road to success and virtue always involves shared sacrifice, hard work, and gratification postponed.  Telling people otherwise isn't leadership, it is pandering. 

Love of country cannot be a supersized version of individual narcissism.  True love of country--of this country--is love of our children, of a creed that promises them a better life before it promises us anything, and embraces the sacrifices needed to make that better life. True love of country is giving ourselves to a cause and a purpose larger than ourselves.  And that cause is to make liberty worth having, to make the pursuit of happiness deeper than the quest for personal pleasure, and to leave a legacy of progress and possibility. 

True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty. 

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possesions of no one race or religion.

True love grows by sacrifice and the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.

He who gives what he would as readily throw away gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.