If all of you had voted the other way - there's about 5500 of you here tonight - I would not be the President of the United States.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.

I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.

Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.

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.