Each moment in history is a fleeing time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning in which course are set that shape decades or centuries.

This can be such a moment.

Forces are now converting that make possible for the first time the hopes that many of man’s deepest aspirations can at last be realized. The spiraling pace of change allows us to contemplate within our lifetime advances that once would have taken centuries.

In throwing wide the horizons of space we have discovered new horizons on the earth.

For the first time because the people of the world want peace and the leaders of the worlds are afraid of war, the times are on the side of peace.

Eight years ago now America will celebrate its 200^th anniversary as a nation. Within the life time of the most people now living, mankind will celebrate that great new year which comes only in a thousand the beginning of the third millennium.

What kind of nation we will be what kind of world we will live in whether shape the future in the image hopes is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America the chance to help the lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil and onto that high ground off peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.

If we succeed generation to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment that we helped make the world safe for mankind.

This is our summons to greatness.

I believe the American people are ready to answer this call.

The second three of the century has been a time of proud achievement we have made enormous strides in science and industry and agriculture we have shared our wealth more broadly than ever. We have learned at last to massage a modern economy to assure its continued growth.

We have given freedom new reach, and we have begun to makes its promise real for black as well as for white.

We see the hope of tomorrow in the youth of today. I know American’s youth I believe in them we can be proud that are better educated more committed more passionately driven by conscience than any generation in our history.

No people has ever been close to the achievement of a just and abundant society because our strengths are so great we can afford to appraise our weaknesses with candor and to approach them with hope.

Standing in this same place a third of a century ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a Nation ravaged by depression and gripped in fear. He could say in surveying the nation troubles they concern thank god only material things.

Our crisis today is the reverse.

We have found ourselves are rich in goods but ragged in spirit reaching with magnificent precision for the moon but falling into raucous discord on earth.

We are caught in war, wanting peace we are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives wanting fulfillment we se tasks that need doing wanting 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 angles of our nature We find that they celebrate the simple things the basic such as goodness decency love kindness.

Greatness comes in simple trappings.

The simple things are the most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us and cement what unties us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

In these difficult years America has suffered from a fever of words; From inflated that promises more than it can deliver from angry that’s fans discontents into hatreds from bombastic 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.

As we reach toward our hopes our task is to build on what has gone before not turning away from the old but turning towards the new.

In this past third of a century government has passed more laws spent more money initiated more programs than in all our previous history.

In pursuing our goal of full employment better housing excellence in education in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of the life in all these and more we will and must press urgently forward.

We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent need of our people at home.

The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do.

Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government and to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed.

What has to be done has to be done by government and people together or it will not done at all. The lesson of past agony is that without people we can do nothing with the people we can do everything.

To match the magnitude of out tasks we need the energies of the people enlisted not only in grand enterprises but more importantly in those small splendid efforts that make headline in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal.

With these we can build a great cathedral of the spirit each of us raising it one stone at a time as he reaches out to his neighbor helping caring doing.

I do not offer a life of uninspiring ease I do not call for a life of grim sacrifice I ask you to join in a high adventure one as rich as humanity itself and as exciting as the times we lives in.

The essence of freedom is that each us shares in the shaping of his own density.

Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself no man is truly whole.

The way to fulfillment is in this use of our talent we achieve nobility in the spirit that inspires that use.

As we measure what can be done we shall promise only what we know we can produce but as we chart our goals we shall be lifted by our dreams.

No man can be fully while his neighbor is not. To go forward at all is to go forward together.

This means black and white together as one nation not two this laws have caught up with our conscience what remains is to give life to what is in the law to ensure at last that as all are born equal in dignity before god all are born equal in dignity before man.

As we learn to go forward together at home let us also seek to go forward together with all mankind.

Let us take as our goal where peace is unknown make it welcome where peace is fragile make it strong where peace is temporary make it permanent.

After a period of confrontation we are entering an area of negotiation.

Let all nations know that during this administration our lines of communication will be open.

We seek an open world open to ideas open to the exchange of god and people a world in which no people great or small will live in angry isolation.

We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.

Those who would be our adversaries we invite to a peaceful competition not in conquering territory extending dominion but in enriching the life of man.

As we explore the reaches of space let us go to the new worlds together not as new worlds to be conquered but as a new adventure to be shared.

With those who are willing to join let us cooperate to reduce the burden of arms to strengthen the structure of peace to lift up the poor and the hungry.

But to all those who world be tempted by weakness let us leave no doubt that we will be as strong as we need to be for as long as we need to be.

Over the past twenty years since I first came to this capital as a freshman congressman I have visited most of the nation of the world.

I have come to the know the leaders of the world and the great forces the hatreds the fears that divide the world.

I know that peace does not come through wishing for it that there is no substitute for days and even years of patient and prolonged diplomacy.

I also know the people of the world.

I have seen the hunger of a homeless child the pain of a wounded in battle the grief of a mother who has lost her son. I know these have no ideology no race.

I know America I know the heart of America is good.

I speak from my own heart and the heart of my country the deep concern we have for those who suffer and those who sorrow.

I have taken an oath today in the presence of god and my countryman to uphold and defend the constitution of the united state to that oath I now ass this sacred commitment I shall consecrate my office my energies and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations.

Let this message be heard by strong and weak a like: The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people but the peace that comes with healing in its wings with compassion for those who have suffered with understanding for those have opposed us with the opportunity for all the people of this earth to choose their own destiny.

Only a few short weeks ago we shared the glory of man’s first sight of the world as god sees it as a single sphere reflecting light in the darkness.

As a Apollo few over the moon gray surface on Christmas Eve they spoke to us of the beauty of the earth and in that voice so clear across the lunar distance we heard them invoke god’s blessing on its goodness.

In that moment their view from the moon moved poet Archibald MacLeish to write:

To see the earth as it truly is small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

In that moment of surpassing technological men turned their thoughts toward home and humanity seeing in that far that man’s destiny on earth is not divisible telling us that however far we reach into the cosmos our destiny lies not in the stars but on Earth it self in our hands in our own hearts.

We have endured a long night of the American spirit but as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn let us not curse the remaining dark let us gather the light.

Our destiny offers not the cup of despair but the chalice of opportunity so let us seize it not in fear but in gladness and riders on the earth together let us go forward firm in our faith stead fast in our purpose cautious of the dangers but sustained by our confidence in the will of god and the promise of man.