The Time To Repair The Roof

Delivered on January 11, 1962, in Kennedy's State of the Union address to Congress. Kennedy had just guided the country through a recession, and the economy was recovering; his point was that periods of strength and stability — not crisis — are the right time to make hard structural decisions. "Pleasant as it may be to bask in the warmth of recovery," he said, "the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." The metaphor became one of his most-quoted lines on proactive governance.