The pursuit of peace resembles the building of a great cathedral. It is the work of a generation. In concept it requires a mater-architect; in execution, the labors of many.

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice - however much we might desire it.

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.

We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost.

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.

Here we are the way politics ought to be in America; the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose and the politics of joy.

It is better to gain a foot than to stand still, even when you seek to gain a mile.