Thanks to the leadership of Vice President Gore, we have a government for the Information Age, once again a government that is a progressive instrument of the common good, rooted in our oldest values of opportunity, responsibility and community, devoted to fiscal responsibility, determined to give our people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives in the 21st century, a 21st century government for 21st century America.

When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right.

People will vote for someone who [they perceive] is strong and wrong before they will vote for someone who appears weak but is right.

We need a spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together. If we have no sense of community, the American dream will wither.

If you believe in a security strategy - a strategy of more friends and fewer enemies, a strategy of greater cooperation and a strategy of keeping America better at home as we grow more diverse - we have to build the minds and hearts to build this kind of world.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president [Barack Obama] and a lot of other Democrats.

The Information Age is, first and foremost, an education age, in which education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime. Last year, from this podium, I said that education has to be our highest priority. I have something to say to every family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college.... Because of the things that have been done, we can make college as universal in the 21st century as high school is today. And, my friends, that will change the face and future of America.