Our only weapons in this war of your lifetime are the weapons of the mind.

Don’t fear your mortality, because it is this very mortality that gives meaning and depth and poignancy to all the days that will be granted to you.

That sense of sacredness, that thinking in generations, must begin with reverence for this earth.

I came from a disadvantaged home. They were Republicans.

From a viable economy to the full funding of Headstart, from a clean environment to true equality for women, from a strong military to a commitment to racial brotherhood, from schools that are honored to...

Thinking in generations also means enabling our young to have a decent standard of living.

Let’s try winning and see what it feels like. If we don’t like it, we can go back to our traditions.

I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America’s greatness.

This land, this water, this air, this planet – this is our legacy to our young.

The great political tugs of the past 35 years have concerned the distribution of the golden eggs. In the 1980s and 1990s we must focus on the health of the goose.

In my time it was the Kennedy call to public service in the Third World. Had there been no Peace Corps, my life would have been radically different.

Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed.

When George Bush used the Willie Horton ad, he knew what he was doing.

In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple...

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do...

That’s a good question. Let me try to evade you.

It was a myth that’s often perpetuated at commencement that holds that only hope and promise lie beyond the halls of academe. Don’t worry, be happy. Everything is fine.

We were never meant to be the world’s greatest debtor nation. We were never meant to have our ancestors’ patrimony sold to the highest foreign bidder.

I have pretty much made up my mind to do this,

Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium.

You are part of that horrid expression, the best and the brightest. It can be a terrible burden if you let it be, but it is the great challenge of your time. And being a...

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

My father’s generation gave to my generation a land of wealth and purpose and world economic dominance.

A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life.

No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time – the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and...

Lowell is my home. It is where I drew my first breath. It is where I will always derive a sense of place and a sense of belonging.

Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfillment.

America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture.