Best Lines of Inaugural Addresses

Theodore Roosevelt; March 4, 1905.  Remarking on the need to leave an unwasted and enlarged heritage to our children. "To do so we must show, not merely in great crisis, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln."

Thomas Jefferson; March 4, 1801. "But every difference in opinion is not a difference in principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."

"... what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still, one more, fellow citizens - a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

Ronald W. Reagan; January 20, 1981. Pictured above left. "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work - work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

"As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will not surrender for it - now or ever."

Abraham Lincoln; March 4, 1861. The Civil War approaches. "We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Franklin D. Roosevelt; March 4, 1933. "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ..."

John F. Kennedy; January 20, 1961. "Let every nation know ... that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty." 

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

The best line of them all: 

Abraham Lincoln; Second Inaugural Address; March 4, 1865. The end of the Civil War in sight, President Lincoln delivers a brief speech aimed at healing a young, divided nation. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."  Lincoln was assassinated the following month.