Speech

You don't have to be Bill Gates or Thomas Edison or Henry Ford to make a difference. Thousands of less famous entrepreneurs have done more than their part to enrich this country.

Growth has been the great alleviator of poverty. Growth has been the engine of social mobility. Growth is the key ingredient in the glue that holds our society together.

The elevation of appearance over substance, of celebrity over character, of short-term gain over lasting achievement is precisely what your generation needs to help end.

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Rise to their needs.

It's moments like these that force us to try harder, to dig deeper, and to discover gifts we never knew we had — to find the greatness that lies within each of us.

Great necessities call out great virtues. We live in a time of great necessities — a time when we cannot avoid the burdens of global leadership.

If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

It was too late for 'talk-teaching' — 'do-teaching would be a lot faster.'

The earth couldn't afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint.

If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

Nations of technically trained people who don't know how to criticize authority, useful profit-makers with obtuse imaginations.