We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

Freedom-loving people around the world must say . . . I am a refugee in a crowded boat foundering off the coast of Vietnam. I am Laotian, a Cambodian, a Cuban, and a Miskito Indian in Nicaragua. I, too, am a potential victim of totalitarianism.

Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.

It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism.

Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day.

There can be no greater good than the quest for peace, and no finer purpose than the preservation of freedom.

Seventy-five years ago I was born in Tampico, Illinois, in a little flat above the bank building. We didn't have any other contact with the bank than that.