Our Nation has a diverse and extremely rich cultural heritage. It is a source of pride and strength to millions of Americans who look to the arts for inspiration, communication and the opportunity for creative self-expression.
Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset.
To me, the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency were not prizes to be won, but a duty to be done.
As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well.
As President, I am determined to offer leadership to overcome our current economic problems. My goal is for jobs for all who want to work and economic opportunity for all who want to achieve.
I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln’s. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking.
I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985.
I am the first to admit that I am no great orator or no person that got where I have gotten by any William Jennings Bryan technique.
I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.
I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.
I don’t know what the future may hold for me-or for any of us. But I want you to know that I am a man who likes having critics who are not enemies.
I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.
Government exists to create and preserve conditions in which people can translate their ideas into practical reality. In the best of times, much is lost in translation. But we try.
Never be satisfied with less than your very best effort. If you strive for the top and miss, you’ll still ‘beat the pack.’
There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.
If it is a clich? to say athletics build character as well as muscle, then I subscribe to the clich.
An American tragedy in which we all have played a part.
As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past.
My golf must be improving, I’m not hitting as many spectators.
Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. These events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world.