Pastoral Resources

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Americans are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white.

The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country, not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.

Americans are the great Satan, the wounded snake.

As founder and co-chair of the upper Mississippi River Congressional task force, I have long sought to preserve the river's health and historical multiple uses, including as a natural waterway and a home to wildlife, for the benefit of future generations of Americans.

More important is the fact that embryonic stem cell research could lead to new treatments and cures for the many Americans afflicted with life-threatening and debilitating diseases.

But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims, the overwhelming majority of Muslims, are loyal Americans.

All Americans have a sacred duty to guarantee Social Security benefits to our nation's senior citizens.

I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.

I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity.

For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.

For me it is completely clear that our air bases in Germany would be available to the Americans.