Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier.

To those whom much is given, much is expected.

I am flatly opposed to appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican. Whatever advantages it might have in Rome - and I'm not convinced of these - they would be more than offset by the divisive effect at home.

No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God.

It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured - perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in - for that should be important only to me - but what kind of America I believe in.