There are few clear areas in which we as a society must rise up united and express our intolerance.  The most obvious now is drugs.  And when that first cocaine was smuggled in on a ship, it may as well have been a deadly bacteria, so much has it hurt the body, the soul of our country.  And there is much to be done and to be said, but take my word for it:  This scourge will stop.

And so, there is much to do; and tomorrow the work begins.  I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead.  For our problems are large, but our heart is larger.  Our challenges are great, but our will is greater.  And if our flaws are endless, God’s love is truly boundless.

Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that.  But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning.  The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds.  And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity—­shared, and written, together.

Thank you.  God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

***

Bill Clinton
First Inaugural Address
Wednesday, January 21, 1993

My fellow citizens: 

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.

This ceremony is held in the depth of winter, but by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.  A spring reborn in the world’s oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.  When our founders boldly declared America’s independence to the world, and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.  Not change for change sake, but change to preserve America’s ideals:  life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.  Each generation of American’s must define what it means to be an American.  On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America. . .and I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over depression, fascism and communism.

Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom, but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues.  Raised in unrivalled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world’s strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our own people.

When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news travelled slowly across the land by horseback, and across the ocean by boat.  Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world.  Communications and commerce are global.  Investment is mobile.  Technology is almost magical, and ambition for a better life is now universal.