Conformity Is The Jailer Of Freedom

Delivered on September 25, 1961, in Kennedy's address before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, during a speech that tackled Cold War crises in Laos, Berlin, and Germany. The full line is: "We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems — for conformity is the jailer of freedom, and the enemy of growth." Kennedy was arguing for political pluralism among nations against the pressure of ideological conformity, warning the General Assembly that the decisions of the next decade might "decide the fate of man for the next ten thousand years."