We are torn by division, wanting
unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks
that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.
To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.
To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.
When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they
celebrate the simple things, the basic things--such as goodness,
decency, love, kindness.
Greatness comes in simple trappings.
The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount
what divides us, and cement what unites us.
To lower our voices would be a simple thing.
In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words;
from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from
angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic
rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one
another--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as
well as our voices.
For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new
ways--to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without
words, the voices of the heart--to the injured voices, the anxious
voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.
Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.
Those left behind, we will help to catch up.
For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that
makes progress possible and our lives secure.
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