America is a melting pot, and education has been a mainspring for our democracy and freedom, a means of providing gifts of knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background, so they could climb higher, help build the American dream, and leave a better life for those who follow.

People do not make wars; governments do.

Detente - isn't that what a farmer has with his turkey - until Thanksgiving?

Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend and preserve, through the darkest and coldest nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a fire that tonight remains a beacon to all oppressed of the world, shining forth from this kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America.

Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.