Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.

Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.

without God, there is no virtue because there's no prompting of the conscience. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

The march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.