You are Americans. You love this country. Together we are entrusted with the principles that represent mankind's greatest political and social achievement.

You are part of that horrid expression, the best and the brightest. It can be a terrible burden if you let it be, but it is the great challenge of your time. And being a warrior in that challenge should be wondrous.

This land, this water, this air, this planet - this is our legacy to our young.

Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium.

No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time on my business.

Thinking in generations also means enabling our young to have a decent standard of living.

Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed.

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

From a viable economy to the full funding of Headstart, from a clean environment to true equality for women, from a strong military to a commitment to racial brotherhood, from schools that are honored to streets free of excessive violence.

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

That's a good question. Let me try to evade you.

A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life.

America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture.

Don't fear your mortality, because it is this very mortality that gives meaning and depth and poignancy to all the days that will be granted to you.

I am an American. I love this country.

I have pretty much made up my mind to do this.

I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America's greatness.

Let's try winning and see what it feels like. If we don't like it, we can go back to our traditions.

My father's generation gave to my generation a land of wealth and purpose and world economic dominance.

Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfillment.