Calvin Coolidge

The opportunity for a rational existence was never before so great.

Out of many tribulations mankind has pressed steadily onward.

This is not a gospel of despair, but of hope and high expectation.

That service and sacrifice which have been the price of past progress are the price of progress now.

We have no right to expect as our portion something substantially different from human experience in the past.

Whatever America holds that may be of value to posterity will not pass away.

The glory of Athens and Sparta, the grandeur of the Imperial City, are a long-lost memory, but the poetry of Homer and Virgil, the oratory of Demosthenes and Cicero, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, abide with us forevermore.

The ark of the covenant and the seven-pronged candlestick have passed from human view; the inhabitants of Judea have been dispersed to the ends of the earth, but the New Testament has survived and increased in its influence among men.

The shepherd kings of Israel, the temple and empire of Solomon, have gone the way of all the earth, but the Old Testament has been preserved for the inspiration of mankind.

The Phoenician galleys and the civilization which was born of their commerce have perished, but the alphabet which that people perfected remains.

The discoverers of truth, the teachers of science, the makers of inventions, have passed to their last rewards, but their works have survived.

That which is necessary for the welfare and progress of the human race has never been destroyed.

But the candid mind of the scholar will admit and seek to remedy all wrongs with the same zeal with which it defends all rights.

So out of our present imperfections we shall develop that which is more perfect.

Civilization began with war and slavery; government began in absolute despotism; and religion itself grew out of superstition which was oftentimes marked with human sacrifices.

The most beneficent of our institutions had their beginnings in forms which would be particularly odious to us now.

We shall miss the central feature of all progress unless we hold to that process now.

In these days of violent agitation scholarly men should reflect that the progress of the past has been accomplished not by the total overthrow of institutions so much as by discarding that which was bad and preserving that which was good…

To establish this it were but necessary to cite eleven of the fifty-five signers of the Declaration of Independence and recall that on the roll of Washington's generals were Sullivan, Knox, Wayne, and the gallant son of Trinity College…

Whatever may be the condition in relation to others, and whatever ignorance and bigotry may imagine, such arguments do not apply to those of the race and blood so prominent in this assemblage.

That which America exemplifies in her Constitution and system of representative government is the most modern, and of any yet devised gives promise of being the most substantial and enduring.

They have been known, discussed, and tried in all their varieties through the past ages.

It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and, because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.

It is not so easy to suggest substantial remedies or propose constructive policies.

It is always easy to discover flaws, and, pointing them out, to criticize.