Not because they are easy, but because they are hard

A volte quando vedi davanti a te delle sfide che si ergono come fossero delle enormi montagne, ecco che arrivano i dubbi. E allora devi ricordarti per quale motivo combatti ogni secondo della settimana, perché quello che fai lo fai proprio perché è difficile ed è una sfida, e ne vale la pena, sempre. Perché quello che conta e fare quel passo in più verso ciò che cerchiamo di capire, e darlo gratuitamente a tutti quelli che chiedono come ci siamo arrivati. Perché l'uomo è curioso, e si migliora soddisfacendo la curiosità per il mondo che lo circonda.

 
We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.

And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

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