Memorable Lines from Presidential Inaugurations

The presidential oath is administered at the United States Capitol, in a ceremony on the west front of the building, overlooking the National Mall, as it has been since 1801 when Thomas Jefferson was sworn in there.

Many events have been added over the past 220 years, but the oath that the president-elect takes is essentially unchanged.

As in previous inaugural ceremonies, going back to that of George Washington, after taking the oath Presidents give an inaugural address.

The President's inaugural speech outlines the themes for his four years in office. Since George Washington's first inaugural address, many memorable words have been spoken and remembered.

Among the most enduring, and frequently quoted, presidential inaugural addresses:

George Washington

First Inaugural, April 30, 1789

"... there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity."

Thomas Jefferson

March 4, 1801

"Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire."

James Madison

March 4, 1809

"The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel, and that of our own country full of difficulties."

James Monroe

March 4, 1817

"A more interesting spectacle was perhaps never seen than is exhibited within the limits of the United States a territory so vast and advantageously situated, containing objects so grand, so useful, so happily connected in all their parts."

Andrew Jackson

March 4, 1829

"Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error."

Abraham Lincoln

March 4, 1861

"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?"

March 4, 1865

"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."

Ulysses S. Grant

March 4, 1869

"I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution."

Herbert Hoover

March 4, 1929

We are fortunate in the ability and integrity of our Federal judges and attorneys. But the system which these officers are called upon to administer is in many respects ill adapted to present-day conditions. Its intricate and involved rules of procedure have become the refuge of both big and little criminals. There is a belief abroad that by invoking technicalities, subterfuge, and delay, the ends of justice may be thwarted by those who can pay the cost.

Franklin Delano 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 nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance"

January 20, 1945

"Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy. And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons at a fearful cost and we shall profit by them."

Harry S. Truman

January 20, 1949

"The peoples of the earth face the future with grave uncertainty, composed almost equally of great hopes and great fears. In this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

January 20, 1953

"Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats to create and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet."

John F. Kennedy

January 20, 1961
"And so my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country."

Lyndon Baines Johnson

January 20, 1965

"Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, “His color is not mine,” or 'His beliefs are strange and different,' in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this Nation."

Richard M. Nixon

January 20, 1969

"In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices."

Jimmy Carter

January 20, 1977

"The world is still engaged in a massive armaments race designed to ensure continuing equivalent strength among potential adversaries. We pledge perseverance and wisdom in our efforts to limit the world's armaments to those necessary for each nation's own domestic safety. And we will move this year a step toward our ultimate goal the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth."

Ronald Reagan

January 20, 1981

"You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?"

"To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."

"We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look."

"We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around."

George H.W. Bush

January 20, 1989
"We must act on what we know. I take as my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity."

"I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity shared, and written, together."

William Jefferson Clinton

January 20, 1993

"The greatest progress we have made, and the greatest progress we have yet to make, is in the human heart. In the end, all the world's wealth and a thousand armies are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit."

"This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way."

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America"

George W. Bush

January 20, 2001

"America, at its best, is compassionate. In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault. Abandonment and abuse are not acts of God, they are failures of love."

"Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along."

Barack Obama

January 20, 2009

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

"We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

January 20, 2013

"We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional Ñ what makes us American Ñ is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago."

"We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few."

"My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it Ñ so long as we seize it together."

 

 

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