America demands and deserves big things from us—­and nothing big ever came from being small.  Let us remember the timeless wisdom of Cardinal Bernardin, when facing the end of his own life.  He said: 

“It is wrong to waste the precious gift of time, on acrimony and division.”

Fellow citizens, we must not waste the precious gift of this time.  For all of us are on that same journey of our lives, and our journey, too, will come to an end.  But the journey of our America must go on.

And so, my fellow Americans, we must be strong, for there is much to dare.  The demands of our time are great and they are different.  Let us meet them with faith and courage, with patience and a grateful and happy heart.  Let us shape the hope of this day into the noblest chapter in our history.  Yes, let us build our bridge.  A bridge wide enough and strong enough for every American to cross over to a blessed land of new promise.

May those generations whose faces we cannot yet see, whose names we may never know, say of us here that we led our beloved land into a new century with the American Dream alive for all her children; with the American promise of a more perfect union a reality for all her people; with America’s bright flame of freedom spreading throughout all the world.

From the height of this place and the summit of this century, let us go forth.  May God strengthen our hands for the good work ahead—­and always, always bless our America.

***

George W. Bush
First Inaugural Address
Saturday, January 20, 2001

President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country.  With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.

As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.

And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.

I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.

We have a place, all of us, in a long story—­a story we continue, but whose end we will not see.  It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.

It is the American story—­a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born.

Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws.  And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.