All Quotes

"Think of a senator winning the Democratic nomination in the year 2000 whose positions included halving the military budget, socializing the medical system, re-regulating the communications and electrical industries, establishing a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, and equalizing funding for all schools regardless of property valuations — and who promised to fire Alan Greenspan, counseled withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, and, for good measure, spoke warmly of adolescent sexual experimentation. He would lose in a landslide. He would be relegated to the ash heap of history. But if the precedent of 1964 were repeated, two years later the country would begin electing dozens of men and women just like him. And not many decades later, Republicans would have to proclaim softer versions of those positions to get taken seriously for their party’s nomination."

"It was both unfortunate and disastrous that the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater as its candidate for President of the United States. In foreign policy Mr. Goldwater advocated a narrow nationalism, a crippling isolationism, and a trigger-happy attitude that could plunge the whole world into the dark abyss of annihilation. On social and economic issues, Mr. Goldwater represented an unrealistic conservatism that was totally out of touch with the realities of the twentieth century. The issue of poverty compelled the attention of all citizens of our country. Senator Goldwater had neither the concern nor the comprehension necessary to grapple with this problem of poverty in the fashion that the historical moment dictated. On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represented a philosophy that was morally indefensible and socially suicidal. While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy."

"Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men—that we’re to choose just between two personalities. Well what of this man that they would destroy—and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold so dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I’ve been privileged to know him ‘when.’ I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I’ve never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing. This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn’t work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there. An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, ‘Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such,’ and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he’d load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load. During the hectic split-seocnd timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said ‘There aren’t many left who care what happens to her. I’d like her to know I care.’ This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, ‘There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start.’ This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is not the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, unless we realize we’re in a war that must be won."

"Low education and low intelligence, Goldwater once declared to the delight of his equally well-upholstered followers, are the real causes of poverty. One wonders what he, who did not last out more than one year of college, would have done if a family fortune and a family business did not await him back home."

"The Goldwaterite picture of themselves, as of their hero, is as distant from reality as the rest of the private universe they are defending. The frontier virtues they claim to embody are as synthetic as the frontier they inhabit. Their desert is air-conditioned and landscaped; their covered wagons are Cadillacs; their chaps are from Abercrombie & Fitch; their money, like their candidate’s, is mostly inherited from grandpappy, or acquired with their wives. In their favorite campaign photos, on that horse and under that ten-gallon Stetson, looking into the setting sun, is no cowboy or even rancher but a Phoenix storekeeper. The Western trade he caters to, in business as in politics, is dude ranch."

"Half a century after Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona rose to prominence by opposing civil-rights legislation designed to dismantle Jim Crow, the Republican Party's shift toward nativism foreclosed another path, not just to ethnic diversity but to the moderation and tolerance that sharing power with those unlike you requires."

"In nominating Goldwater, the Republicans backed a candidate who equated Social Security with socialism, opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a violation of states' rights, and denounced as pusillanimous the bipartisan anticommunist foreign policy of containment. As one of his supporters, Phyllis Schlafly (who was then still obscure), put it in the title of a best-selling campaign tract, Goldwater offered the country "a choice, not an echo." Yet the hard-right Republican crusade seemed to fall apart in November, when Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, who had pledged to continue the policies of the New Frontier, crushed Goldwater in the greatest popular landslide to that time in presidential politics."

"We take pleasure in watching an athlete break a record, hearing a soprano in full flight, or reading a philosopher of depth and insight. Human accomplishment is the ultimate spectator sport. Apply as much historical analysis to it as we wish, and we’ll not unlock all its mysteries. The continuous capacity of genius to surpass understanding remains a human constant."

"At the end of a long campaign, I believe I know the people of our state as well as anyone. Based on this knowledge of Georgians North and South, Rural and Urban, liberal and conservative, I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over."

"I guess I always had wanted ultimately to be Chief of Naval Operations. But when I went back home to where I had lived, and when I saw what my father's life had meant in the view of those who knew him best, his service on the school board, his work for the new hospital, his dealing with the education of farmers, his life in the church, and his life in politics- he had just been elected to the legislature and had served one year when he died- I could feel a pull on me that was almost irresistible to go back and renew my ties to my birthplace. I felt I had to make the choice. Did I want to be Chief of Naval Operations, and devote my whole life to that narrowly-defined career, which was a good one, or did I want to go back and build a more diverse life with a lot of friends, and have permanent stability in a community, an integral part in the life of a whole group of people? And I chose the latter. Regrets? None at all."

"We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon."

"I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination. … Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee."

"I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do — and I have done it — and God forgives me for it.""

"Sometimes we try to justify this unsavory business on the cynical ground that by rationing out the means of violence we can somehow control the world’s violence. The fact is that we cannot have it both ways. Can we be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war?"

"My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for President. It’s been a long time since I said those words the first time, and now I’ve come here after seeing our great country to accept your nomination."

"There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders. Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. For I believe that we can come through this time of trouble stronger than ever. Like troops who have been in combat, we have been tempered in the fire; we have been disciplined, and we have been educated. Guided by lasting and simple moral values, we have emerged idealists without illusions, realists who still know the old dreams of justice and liberty, of country and of community."

"Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment. We simply cannot check inflation by keeping people out of work.."

"Our nation should always derive its character directly from the people and let this be the strength and the image to be presented to the world — the character of the American people. To our friends and allies I say that what unites us through our common dedication to democracy is much more important than that which occasionally divides us on economics or politics. To the nations that seek to lift themselves from poverty I say that America shares your aspirations and extends its hand to you. To those nation-states that wish to compete with us I say that we neither fear competition nor see it as an obstacle to wider cooperation. To all people I say that after two hundred years America still remains confident and youthful in its commitment to freedom and equality, and we always will be."

"I see an America on the move again, united, a diverse and vital and tolerant nation, entering our third century with pride and confidence, an America that lives up to the majesty of our Constitution and the simple decency of our people. This is the America we want. This is the America that we will have."

"A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others."

"The destruction was mutual. We went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or impose American will on other people. I don't feel that we ought to apologize or castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability."

"The authenticity and universal applicability of these guarantees were never questioned by a democratic power — until recently, and by America! Instead of honoring the historic restraints, our political leaders decided to violate them, using the excuse that we are at war against terrorism. It is obvious that the Geneva Conventions were designed specifically to protect prisoners of war, not prisoners of peace."

"Democracy’s great recent successes — in India, Portugal, Spain, Greece — show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed. For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence."

"Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use."

"We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some — perhaps many – may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:"

"For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation."

"Ours was the first society openly to define itself in terms of both spirituality and of human liberty. It is that unique self-definition which has given us an exceptional appeal, but it also imposes on us a special obligation, to take on those moral duties which, when assumed, seem invariably to be in our own best interests."

"Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right."

"We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced."

"To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others. We will not behave in foreign places so as to violate our rules and standards here at home, for we know that the trust which our Nation earns is essential to our strength."

"The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun – not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights. The passion for freedom is on the rise. Tapping this new spirit, there can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world that is truly humane. We are a strong nation, and we will maintain strength so sufficient that it need not be proven in combat – a quiet strength based not merely on the size of an arsenal, but on the nobility of ideas. We will be ever vigilant and never vulnerable, and we will fight our wars against poverty, ignorance, and injustice – for those are the enemies against which our forces can be honorably marshaled. We are a purely idealistic Nation, but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness. Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people."

"I think it's very significant to point out that several Presidents and several different Congresses, that many private contributors have been involved in the evolution of this tremendous new health care center. I'm proud of it. It has been a subject of some criticism because of its cost. But I think we have to remember that this is the center of our government, and that what does occur here in 1977 and in the year 2000 can very well set a standard of care and love for children that will permeate the consciousness of doctors and nurses and parents, teachers and social workers throughout our country and, perhaps, even throughout the world. I grew up in a home in a rural area of Georgia, but my mother was a registered nurse. And I and the other children in that country community had good health care, not just from her but because there was a heavy emphasis on the prevention of disease, on inoculations, and on a constant relationship with a large number of medical doctors who lived there then."

"We've let those standards of prevention emphasis deteriorate over the last few decades. Recently, Joe Califano, who is the new head of the Health, Education, and Welfare Department, was talking about this. And we decided to increase the emphasis placed on the health care for children. In the past, the Federal Government has paid 50 percent of the cost of identifying young children who need health care, and we had very slight response. So, we decided in this next budget to increase that to 75 percent, hoping that in this way, within the school environment, within the outpatient clinics, within the county health centers, that we could identify children who perhaps have not had the good fortune that many of your children and my child has had, and might have potential problems observed and corrected before they reach their formative years of life."

"A great deal of thought has gone into the design of this hospital to try to predict what the future might bold in energy conservation, health care, and in the use of brief periods of stay within a hospital environment for those who are quite ill. Another new or innovative change that has been made in the design is that there is a special place in every instance for the parent of a child to stay here with that child while the severe illness has not been corrected. So, adjacent to each child's bed there is a place for the parent to stay. This hospital, I believe, is associated with George Washington University and its medical center. And it's close enough so that Federal officials, as well, can both teach, try new ideas, and learn. We, I think, can receive rich benefits from this center. And I believe that we can set a standard for the whole country."

"I know how much I love my own children. Just a few minutes ago, Amy and I were out in the front yard of the White House designing a treehouse that's going to be built for Amy, and it is one of those many instances that I have to be close to her. And I know that when she does get ill in the future, I want her to have good health care. But I'm just as interested in a child who lives in the oldest and most dilapidated apartment house in the District of Columbia. And I'm also interested in the children that live in Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, or who live in other parts of our country. So, I'm here to represent the Government, which quite often makes mistakes, but which I hope always retains a heart, attuned to loving care for those who are able to care for themselves, yes, but for primarily those whose care would be neglected if those who do occupy major political positions in the Congress and in the White House didn't care for everyone. This is a good day for us. And I hope that everyone who serves in this hospital or who comes here for treatment or whose family uses this facility will be blessed by it and will be inspired with a sense of compassion and understanding and brotherhood and love, to keep illness away from our children and to correct those who are afflicted with disease."

"I want to congratulate those who have come before me who had the foresight to understand the need for this facility. And I think that every family who does live in that dilapidated apartment dwelling can breathe a little easier knowing that if their children are sick that poverty or despair will not prevent their child from getting just as good medical treatment as the little daughter of the President of the United States. That's what's good about a system of government such as ours. We've got a long way to go in the field of health care, but this is a major step forward. And I'm very proud of what has been done and look forward with a great deal of determination to earn, as President, working with all of you, the medal that has been struck and presented to me and Rosalynn. It will go in the White House museum or in the Archives. And I hope it will be a reminder in generations to come of the concern that many of you have had long before I was elected President at these tiny but precious emblems of concern in the greatest country on Earth--the children that we care so much about."

"Last night I was in Clinton, Massachusetts, at a Town Hall meeting where people of that small town decide their political and economic future. Tonight I speak to a similar meeting where people representing nations all over the world come here to decide their political and economic future. I am proud to be with you tonight in this house where the shared hopes of the world can find a voice. I have come here to express my own support and the continuing support of my country for the ideals of the United Nations. We are proud that for the 32 years since its creation, the United Nations has met on American soil. And we share with you the commitments of freedom, self-government, human dignity, mutual toleration, and the peaceful resolution of disputes--which the founding principles of the United Nations and also Secretary General Kurt Waldheim so well represent. No one nation by itself can build a world which reflects all these fine values. But the United States, my own country, has a reservoir of strength--economic strength, which we are willing to share; military strength, which we hope never to use again; and the strength of ideals, which are determined fully to maintain the backbone of our own foreign policy."

"It is now 8 weeks since I became President. I have brought to office a firm commitment to a more open foreign policy. And I believe that the American people expect me to speak frankly about the policies that we intend to pursue, and it is in that spirit that I speak to you tonight about our own hopes for the future. I see a hopeful world, a world dominated by increasing demands for basic freedoms, for fundamental rights, for higher standards of human existence. We are eager to take part in the shaping of that world. But in seeking such a better world, we are not blind to the reality of disagreement, nor to the persisting dangers that confront us all. Every headline reminds us of bitter divisions, of national hostilities, of territorial conflicts, of ideological competition. In the Middle East, peace is a quarter of a century overdue. A gathering racial conflict threatens southern Africa; new tensions are rising in the Horn of Africa. Disputes in the eastern Mediterranean remain to be resolved. Perhaps even more ominous is the staggering arms race. The Soviet Union and the United States have accumulated thousands of nuclear weapons. Our two nations now have five times more missile warheads today than we had just 8 years ago. But we are not five times more secure. On the contrary, the arms race has only increased the risk of conflict."

"We can only improve this world if we are realistic about its complexities. The disagreements that we face are deeply rooted, and they often raise difficult philosophical as well as territorial issues. They will not be solved easily. They will not be solved quickly. The arms race is now embedded in the very fabric of international affairs and can only be contained with the greatest difficulty. Poverty and inequality are of such monumental scope that it will take decades of deliberate and determined effort even to improve the situation substantially. I stress these dangers and these difficulties because I want all of us to dedicate ourselves to a prolonged and persistent effort designed first to maintain peace and to reduce the arms race; second, to build a better and a more cooperative international economic system; and third, to work with potential adversaries as well as our close friends to advance the cause of human rights. In seeking these goals, I realize that the United States cannot solve the problems of the world. We can sometimes help others resolve their differences, but we cannot do so by imposing our own particular solutions."

"Above all, the search for peace requires a much more deliberate effort to contain the global arms race. Let me speak in this context, first, of the U.S.-Soviet Union relationship, and then of the wider need to contain the proliferation of arms throughout the global community. I intend to pursue the strategic arms limitation talks between the United States and the Soviet Union with determination and with energy. Our Secretary of State will visit Moscow in just a few days. SALT is extraordinarily complicated. But the basic fact is that while negotiations remain deadlocked, the arms race goes on; the security of both countries and the entire world is threatened. My preference would be for strict controls or even a freeze on new types and new generations of weaponry and with a deep reduction in the strategic arms of both sides. Such a major step towards not only arms limitation but arms reduction would be welcomed by mankind as a giant step towards peace."

"A shadow of disappointment crossed Remi’s brow - he was always being disappointed about the funniest things. He had a heart of gold."

"We should, however, also pursue a broad, permanent multilateral agreement on this issue. We will also seek to establish Soviet willingness to reach agreement with us on mutual military restraint in the Indian Ocean, as well as on such matters as arms exports to the troubled areas of the world. In proposing such accommodations I remain fully aware that American-Soviet relations will continue to be highly competitive--but I believe that our competition must be balanced by cooperation in preserving peace, and thus our mutual survival. I will seek such cooperation with the Soviet Union--earnestly, constantly, and sincerely. However, the effort to contain the arms race is not a matter just for the United States and Soviet Union alone. There must be a wider effort to reduce the flow of weapons to all the troubled spots of this globe. Accordingly, we will try to reach broader agreements among producer and consumer nations to limit the export of conventional arms, and we, ourselves, will take the initiative on our own because the United States has become one of the major arms suppliers of the world. We are deeply committed to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And we will undertake a new effort to reach multilateral agreements designed to provide legitimate supplies of nuclear fuels for the production of energy, while controlling the poisonous and dangerous atomic wastes. Working with other nations represented here, we hope to advance the cause of peace."

"But the search for peace also means the search for justice. One of the greatest challenges before us as a nation, and therefore one of our greatest opportunities, is to participate in molding a global economic system which will bring greater prosperity to all the people of all countries. I come from a part of the United States which is largely agrarian and which for many years did not have the advantages of adequate transportation or capital or management skills or education which were available in the industrial States of our country. So, I can sympathize with the leaders of the developing nations, and I want them to know that we will do our part."

"We must use our collective natural resources wisely and constructively. We've not always done so. Today our oceans are being plundered and defiled. With a renewed spirit of cooperation and hope, we join in the Conference of the Law of the Sea in order to correct past mistakes of generations gone by and to ensure that all nations can share the bounties of the eternal oceans in the future. We must also recognize that the world is facing serious shortages of energy. This is truly a global problem. For our part, we are determined to reduce waste and to work with others toward a fair and proper sharing of the benefits and costs of energy resources. The search for peace and justice also means respect for human dignity. All the signatories of the U.N. Charter have pledged themselves to observe and to respect basic human rights. Thus, no member of the United Nations can claim that mistreatment of its citizens is solely its own business. Equally, no member can avoid its responsibilities to review and to speak when torture or unwarranted deprivation occurs in any part of the world. The basic thrust of human affairs points toward a more universal demand for fundamental human rights. The United States has a historical birthright to be associated with this process. We in the United States accept this responsibility in the fullest and the most constructive sense. Ours is a commitment, and not just a political posture. I know perhaps as well as anyone that our own ideals in the area of human rights have not always been attained in the United States, but the American people have an abiding commitment to the full realization of these ideals. And we are determined, therefore, to deal with our deficiencies quickly and openly. We have nothing to conceal."

"The United Nations is a global forum dedicated to the peace and well-being of every individual--no matter how weak, no matter how poor. But we have allowed its human rights machinery to be ignored and sometimes politicized. There is much that can be done to strengthen it. The Human Rights Commission should be prepared to meet more often. And all nations should be prepared to offer its fullest cooperation to the Human Rights Commission, to welcome its investigations, to work with its officials, and to act on its reports."

"Strengthened international machinery will help us to close the gap between promise and performance in protecting human rights. When gross or widespread violation takes place--contrary to international commitments-it is of concern to all. The solemn commitments of the United Nations Charter, of the United Nations Universal Declaration for Human Rights, of the Helsinki Accords, and of many other international instruments must be taken just as seriously as commercial or security agreements. This issue is important in itself. It should not block progress on other important matters affecting the security and well-being of our people and of world peace. It is obvious that the reduction of tension, the control of nuclear arms, the achievement of harmony in the troubled areas of the world, and the provision of food, good health, and education will independently contribute to advancing the human condition. In our relationships with other countries, these mutual concerns will be reflected in our political, our cultural, and our economic attitudes. These then are our basic priorities as we work with other members to strengthen and to improve the United Nations. First, we will strive for peace in the troubled areas of the world; second, we will aggressively seek to control the weaponry of war; third, we will promote a new system of international economic progress and cooperation; and fourth, we will be steadfast in our dedication to the dignity and well-being of people throughout the world. I believe that this is a foreign policy that is consistent with my own Nation's historic values and commitments. And I believe that it is a foreign policy that is consonant with the ideals of the United Nations."

"We're also hopeful that in the future we can have success in our effort to identify abuses and to correct the abuses and to set a new standard in the preservation of human rights throughout the world. I don't intend to yield on this position, because I think it represents what our Nation is and what the world ought to be. Your forceful voices in constantly espousing the cause of human rights would help me a great deal and help the Members of Congress and help other leaders of our Nation to establish a corps of moral commitment that can restore the legitimate pride in our country, to the extent that is has been diminished, and reestablish the United States of America as the rallying point for human rights around the world. We've not enjoyed that position in recent years. But I'm determined that once again, we'll be a beacon light for those who believe in human rights all over the globe. And you can help me with it if you will."

"On the domestic scene, there are just two or three other items. I'd like to mention to you. One, of course, is the passage of the equal rights amendment. I and my wife and my daughter-in-law and others have tried as best we could to join with you in the furtherance of this noble and very necessary change in the United States Constitution. You might be interested in knowing that the first time I met Ambassador Dobrynin from the Soviet Union he brought up the subject of human rights. And I said, "Well, my position is strong. It's not going to change." He said, "Well, let me point out that the United States is not without fault itself." I said, "I know that, but what do you mean?" He said, "Well, you still haven't ratified the equal rights amendment." And I said, "I tell you what. I'll try to help you with human rights in the Soviet Union; you help me get the equal rights amendment passed in the United States." But to be serious about it, our failure to pass the equal rights amendment hurts us as we try to set a standard of commitment to human rights throughout the world. I hope we can correct that defect by next year at the latest."

"There are many other major goals that I tried to express as a commitment to the American people during the long campaign. They all touch your lives in one way or the other. I don't claim to know all the answers. I need you to help me with your support when you agree, with your advice when we're evolving policy, and with your criticism when you think I've made a mistake. I need all three. And I pledge to you a continuing, unswerving, never-diminishing commitment on my part, as your President, to the goals that you and I know are crucial to a better life for all Americans, including of course the majority of Americans who happen to be women."

"Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem that is unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us."