In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.