Barack Obama

This is not about me. It's about looking out across that vast sea of humanity of nearly them million people and them expressing the will for change, the desire for change.

Thank you, everybody. Let's go change America.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas that for…

We are responsible to you. We are accountable to you. We are grateful to you. Not only for the trust you've bestowed, but also for a guy named Joe Biden.

For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us and we will defeat you.

We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interest and putting off unpleasant decisions, that time has surely passed.

I think it's overwhelming. I think he's in touch with the people, his humanity. People realize that and they celebrate that and that's why they celebrate him.

But understand this is not the end. This is just the beginning. Together you and I, all of us, we can make sure that America's better days are ahead of us.

If you can make this election possible and this Inauguration Day possible, then you can make good jobs for people who don't have jobs possible. You can make affordable health care possible. You can make a quality education for every child…

Today was about you, the American people and how you can achieve extraordinary things when you put your mind to it. How you can make possible what seemed impossible. How you can make real what seemed unreal.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.

Let's go change America.

That's what this campaign's been about. That's what this administration's been about. And that's why I'm confident that our better days are ahead of us.

As I said earlier today, we face some daunting challenges. It will not be easy, and it will not be quick for us to solve these issues.

We then provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now. We are not, as I said in the inauguration, going to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.

Our challenges may be new.

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.

Let us remember that: 'The mystic chords of memory... will yet swell the chorus of the Union.'

I do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real.

This legacy is not simply a birthright—it is a glorious burden.

We don't ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was but 26 years old when he led a bus boycott in Montgomery to mobilize the movement. It's a powerful reminder of the debt that we all owe to those who marched for us and fought for us and stood up on our…