9696 – Global | English Speeches, Books, coupons and online services ratings.
We’re never going to achieve perfection. Certainly not in a democracy. But we can do better. And it’s a slow process of doing better each and each generation. With setbacks, with failures, but then we keep on going. Our grandparents, our parents. It’s that process that ultimately is a great responsibility for all of us. But it is also a remarkable privilege to make this world better.
The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment, just when they threaten to overwhelm us.
I believe those of us who believe in democracy have to acknowledge the anxieties and frustrations that rapid economic and cultural and demographic changes have brought, and we have to find a language, a story of how we can affirm the best of traditional values in our respective countries or respective communities. We have to create a space for our differences, while insisting that our politics and our governmental institutions uphold the overarching principles of equality for all people.
It’s been said that those we most deeply love, we can never truly lose, for they become part of us. Almost 10 years after an act of unspeakable violence shattered the quiet community of Newtown, the souls that were lost that day, those of 20 beautiful children and six courageous adults, their souls remain part of us.
If we persevere in the career in which we have advanced so far and in the path already traced, we can not fail, under the favor of a gracious Providence, to attain the high destiny which seems to await us.
We’re here because we believe that humanity can bridge our differences and make better choices, that we can see each other and listen to each other, and imagine each other’s hardships and pain, and that this better future is most likely to happen under democratic systems of government, democracies in which everyone’s dignity is recognized, where the rule of law and human rights are respected by everybody, where people have a voice in how they’re governed, where we all have a stake in maintaining the social order, and where we can disagree with each other, sometimes bitterly, without losing sight of the ties that bind us together.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy.
John Hope Franklin once said, “Good history is a good foundation for a better present and future.” The best history doesn’t just sit behind a glass case; it helps us to understand what’s outside the case. The best history helps us recognize the mistakes that we’ve made and the dark corners of the human spirit that we need to guard against.
A nation reveals itself not only by the people it produces, but by those it remembers. We do so not just by hoisting a flag, but by lifting up our neighbors. Not just by pausing in silence, but by practicing in our own lives the ideals of opportunity and liberty and equality that they fought for.
Equal pay for equal work should be a fundamental principle of our economy. It’s the idea that whether you’re a high school teacher, a business executive, or a professional soccer player or tennis player, your work should be equally valued and rewarded, whether you are a man or a woman.
People of the world – look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one. Sixty years after the airlift, we are called upon again. History has led us to a new crossroad, with new promise and new peril.
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.
When the public voice called for war, all knew, and still know, that without them it could not be carried on through the period which it might last, and the patriotism, the good sense, and the manly spirit of our fellow-citizens are pledges for the cheerfulness with which they will bear each his share of the common burden.
We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope — hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.
No matter what you want to do with your life, you want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.
Think of perfection like an asymptote. The journey towards it is infinite, but the destination can never be reached. If you’re able to take that journey and enjoy it, knowing that there will always be endless room for improvement, then you be ah’ight.
… it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality.
The truth is, being an American is hard. Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no respite from our ideals. All of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves — not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s inconvenient. When it’s tough. When we’re afraid. The tension throughout our history between welcoming or rejecting the stranger, it’s about more than just immigration.
… since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness.
Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished, but we’re getting closer. Two hundred and thirty-nine years after this nation’s founding our union is not yet perfect, but we are getting closer. Our job’s easier because somebody already got us through that first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge.
