My friends, I'm proud and honoured to stand here today No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born, but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which it is born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice. We must all come up together. We cannot walk alone Choose the human race over the nuclear race. Bury the weapons and don't burn the people. Dream of a new value system. Teachers who teach for life and not just for a living Dream of lawyers more concerned about justice than a judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned about public health than personal wealth. Dream of preachers and priests who will prophesy and not just profiteer. This is about a human quality, the values of able to love their enemy in their most trying moments, not mistreatment of human beings. Like when we enter emergency rooms, where there are hundreds of people wounded, the doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped, Moslems, Christians, or else. I believe it is possible in our time to make the world we live in another, better, more peaceful place. I know we must work very hard and very creatively to build new foundations for a stable and enduring peace. To meet this challenge requires understanding the world we live in When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged Don't treat our fellow citizen as refugees for they are in their own country. You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest -- for your deeds will follow you down through history. We can not merely take, but we must give as well; Our foreign policy must be characterized by mutual respect Democracy guarantees the right to participate Democracy guarantees opportunity, not success. Whether there is a crisis in communications, confusion is in the air, we cannot afford to lose our way. We may agree to agree; or agree to disagree on issues; we must bring back civility to these tensions. When all is said and done, we must forgive each other, and redeem each other, and move on We are not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. We are is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. I know, this is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving. For leaders, the pain is often intense. But you must smile through your tears and keep moving with the faith that there is a brighter side somewhere. We will work energetically on our problems, like poverty, corruption, disease, and instability we're not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren In this dedication of a Nation, we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come. Thank you
