Bill Clinton

“ Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families, but for our communities and our country. To renew America we must revitalize our democracy. This beautiful capitol, like every capitol since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is IN and who is OUT, who is UP and who is DOWN, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and paves our way. ”

“ I challenge a new generation of YOUNG Americans to a season of service, to act on your idealism, by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much to be done. Enough, indeed, for millions of others who are still young in spirit, to give of themselves in service, too. In serving we recognize a simple, but powerful, truth: we need each other, and we must care for one another. ”

“ Today we do more than celebrate America, we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America, an idea born in revolution, and renewed through two centuries of challenge, an idea tempered by the knowledge that but for fate, we, the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have been each other ”

“ We earn our livelihood in America today in peaceful competition with people all across the Earth. Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the URGENT question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy. This new world has already enriched the lives of MILLIONS of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for less, when others cannot work at all, when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt our enterprises, great and small ”

“ Americans deserve better, and in this city today there are people who want to do better, and so I say to all of you here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage, so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America. ”

“ The world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race: they affect us all. Today as an old order passes, the new world is more free, but less stable. Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities, and new dangers. Clearly, America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make. While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges nor fail to seize the opportunities of this new world. ”

“ Posterity is the world to come, the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibilities. We must do what America does best, offer more opportunity TO all and demand more responsibility FROM all. ”

“ Let us give this capitol back to the people to whom it belongs.
To renew America we must meet challenges abroad, as well as at home. There is no longer a clear division between what is foreign and what is domestic. ”

“ From our Revolution to the Civil War, to the Great Depression, to the Civil Rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history. ”

“ We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children. Our founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is. ”

“ Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people, and we must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us. ”

“ And so, my fellow Americans, as we stand at the edge of the 21st Century, let us begin anew, with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is done. The Scripture says: "And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." ”

“ We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have not done so. Instead we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. ”

“ Raised in unrivalled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among OUR OWN people. ”

“ Together with our friends and allies, we will work together to shape change, lest it engulf us. When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act ”

“ Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world. Communications and commerce are global. Investment is mobile. Technology is almost magical, and ambition for a better life is now universal. ”