晨读英语美文 The Presidential Inaugural Speech

The Presidential Inaugural Speech

[00:07.27]    I thank you all. 

[00:09.23]Chief Justice Renquist, President Carter,

[00:12.39] President Bush, President Clinton, 

[00:15.64]distinguished guests and my fellow citizens.

[00:19.15]  The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, 

[00:23.48]yet common in our country. 

[00:25.63]With a simple oath, 

[00:27.49]we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.

[00:30.96]  I am honored and humbled to stand here 

[00:34.15]where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, 

[00:38.28]and so many will follow.

[00:39.79]  We have a place, all of us, in a long story. 

[00:43.40]A story we continue, but whose end we will not see. 

[00:47.96]It is a story of a new world

[00:50.80] that became a friend and liberator of the old. 

[00:53.81]A story of a slave holding society 

[00:56.82]that became a servant of freedom.

[00:59.19] It is the American story.

[01:01.90] A story of flawed and fallible people, 

[01:04.82]united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

[01:09.57]  The grandest of these ideals

[01:11.86] is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, 

[01:15.33]that everyone deserves a chance, 

[01:17.83]that no insignificant person was ever born. 

[01:20.93]Americans are called to enact this promise

[01:24.23] in our lives and in our laws. 

[01:26.93]And though our nation has sometimes halted and sometimes delayed,

[01:31.74] we must follow no other course.

[01:35.05]    What you do is as important as anything government does. 

[01:38.99]I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort,

[01:43.36] to defend needed reforms against easy attacks, 

[01:47.28]to serve your nation beginning with your neighbor.

[01:50.58] I ask you to be citizens;

[01:53.01] citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; 

[01:57.84]responsible citizens building communities of service

[02:01.89] and a nation of character.

[02:04.30]    Americans are generous and strong and decent

[02:07.44] not because we believe in ourselves, 

[02:09.94]but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. 

[02:13.87]When this spirit of citizenship is missing, 

[02:17.10]no government program can replace it.

[02:20.19] When this spirit is present, 

[02:22.20]no wrong can stand against it.

[02:24.98]  After the Declaration of Independence was signed,

[02:28.35] Virginian statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson. 

[02:32.95]“We know the race is not to the swift, 

[02:36.53]nor the battle to the strong. 

[02:38.68]Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”

[02:45.95]  Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration. 

[02:50.62]The years and changes accumulate. 

[02:53.65]But the themes of this day,

[02:55.75] he would know: our nation’s grand story of courage, 

[02:59.91]and its simple dream of dignity.

[03:02.73]  Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing.

[03:06.49] We renew that purpose today, 

[03:09.58]to make our country more just and generous, 

[03:12.90]to affirm the dignity of our lives, and every life. 

[03:17.37]This work continues. The story goes on. 

[03:21.27]And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.

[03:27.02]God bless you all and God bless America!