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1、-范文最新推荐- Commencement Address at Welles barbara pierce bush: commencement address at wellesley collegethank you. thank you, very much. thank you very, very much, president keohane. mrs. gorbachev, trustees, faculty, parents, and i should say, julia porter, class president, and certainly my new best
2、friend, christine bicknell - and, of course, the class of 1990. i am really thrilled to be here today, and very excited, as i know you all must be, that mrs. gorbachev could join us.these are exciting times. theyre exciting in washington, and i have really looked forward to coming to wellesley. i th
3、ought it was going to be fun. i never dreamt it would be this much fun. so, thank you for that.more than ten years ago, when i was invited here to talk about our experiences in the peoples republic of china, i was struck by both the natural beauty of your campus and the spirit of this place.wellesle
4、y, you see, is not just a place but an idea - an experiment in excellence in which diversity is not just tolerated, but is embraced. the essence of this spirit was captured in a moving speech about tolerance given last year by a student body president of one of your sister colleges. she related the
5、story by robert fulghum about a young pastor, finding himself in charge of some very energetic children, hits upon a game called “giants, wizards, and dwarfs.” “you have to decide now,” the pastor instructed the children, “which you are - a giant, a wizard or a dwarf?” at that, a small girl tugging
6、at his pants leg, asked, “but where do the mermaids stand?” and the pastor tells her there are no mermaids. and she says, “oh yes there are. i am a mermaid.”now this little girl knew what she was, and she was not about to give up on either her identity, or the game. she intended to take her place wh
7、erever mermaids fit into the scheme of things. where do the mermaids stand? all of those who are different, those who do not fit the boxes and the pigeonholes?” “answer that question,” wrote fulghum, “and you can build a school, a nation, or a whole world.” as that very wise young woman said, “diver
8、sity, like anything worth having, requires effort. effort to learn about and respect difference, to be compassionate with one another, to cherish our own identity, and to accept unconditionally the same in others.you should all be very proud that this is the wellesley spirit. now i know your first c
9、hoice today was alice walker - guess how i know! - known for the color purple. instead you got me - known for the color of my hair! alice walkers book has a special resonance here. at wellesley, each class is known by a special color. for four years the class of 90 has worn the color purple. today y
10、ou meet on severance green to say goodbye to all of that, to begin a new and very personal journey, to search for your own true colors.in the world that awaits you, beyond the shores of lake waban, no one can say what your true colors will be. but this i do know: you have a first class education fro
11、m a first class school. and so you need not, probably cannot, live a “paint-by-numbers” life. decisions are not irrevocable. choices do come back. and as you set off from wellesley, i hope that many of you will consider making three very special choices.the first is to believe in something larger th
12、an yourself, to get involved in some of the big ideas of our time. i chose literacy because i honestly believe that if more people could read, write and comprehend, we would be that much closer to solving so many of the problems that plague our nation and our society.and early on i made another choi
13、ce which i hope youll make as well. whether you are talking about education, career, or service, youre talking about life - and life really must have joy. its supposed to be fun!one of the reasons i made the most important decision of my life, to marry george bush, is because he made me laugh. its t
14、rue, sometimes weve laughed through our tears. but that shared laughter has been one of our strongest bonds. find the joy in life, because as ferris bueller said on his day off, “life moves pretty fast; and ya dont stop and look around once in a while, ya gonna miss it!” (i am not going to tell geor
15、ge ya clapped more for ferris than ya clapped for george.)the third choice that must not be missed is to cherish your human connections: your relationships with family and friends. for several years, youve had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard work. and, of cour
16、se, thats true. but as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will be, you are a human being first. and those human connections - with spouses, with children, with friends - are the most important investments you will ever make.at the end of your life, you will never
17、regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. you will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.we are in a transitional period right now, fascinating and exhilarating times, learning to adjust to changes and the choices we
18、, men and women, are facing. as an example, i remember what a friend said, on hearing her husband complain to his buddies that he had to babysit. quickly setting him straight, my friend told her husband that when its your own kids, its not called babysitting. now, maybe we should adjust faster; mayb
19、e we should adjust slower. but whatever the era whatever the times, one thing will never change: fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. you must read to your children. and you must hug your children. and you must love your children. your success as a family, our success as
20、a society, depends not on what happens in the white house, but on what happens inside your house.for over fifty years, it was said that the winner of wellesleys annual hoop race would be the first to get married. now they say, the winner will be the first to become a c.e.o. both of those stereotypes
21、 show too little tolerance for those who want to know where the mermaids stand. so i want to offer a new legend: the winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream - not societys dreams - her own personal dream.and who knows? somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who wil
22、l one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the white house as the presidents spouse.i wish him well!well, the controversy ends here. but our conversation is only beginning. and a worthwhile conversation it has been. so as you leave wellesley today, take with you deep thanks for the courtesy
23、and the honor you have shared with mrs. gorbachev and with me. thank you. god bless you. and may your future be worthy of your dreams. ronald reagan: “a time for choosing” (aka “the speech”)program announcer: ladies and gentlemen, we take pride in presenting a thoughtful address by ronald reagan. mr
24、. reagan:reagan: thank you. thank you very much. thank you and good evening. the sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasnt been provided with a script. as a matter of fact, i have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the
25、 choice that we face in the next few weeks.i have spent most of my life as a democrat. i recently have seen fit to follow another course. i believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenanc
26、e of peace and prosperity. the line has been used, “weve never had it so good.”as for the peace that we would preserve, i wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in south vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained
27、indefinitely. do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? there can be no real peace while one american is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. were at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars,
28、and its been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. well i think its time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were inten
29、ded for us by the founding fathers.not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “we dont know how lucky we are.” and the cuban stopped and said, “how luc
30、ky you are? i had someplace to escape to.” and in that sentence he told us the entire story. if we lose freedom here, theres no place to escape to. this is the last stand on earth.and this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign peopl
31、e, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of mans relation to man. this is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the american revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capi
32、tol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.you and i are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. well id like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. theres only an up or down - up mans old - old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual free
33、dom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.in this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the “great society,” or
34、 as we were told a few days ago by the president, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. but theyve been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things i now will quote have appeared in print. these are not republican accusations. f
35、or example, they have voices that say, “the cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.” another voice says, “the profit motive has become outmoded. it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state.” or, “our traditional system of individual freedom is incapab
36、le of solving the complex problems of the 20th century.” senator fullbright has said at stanford university that the constitution is outmoded. he referred to the president as “our moral teacher and our leader,” and he says he is “hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by thi
37、s antiquated document.” he must “be freed,” so that he “can do for us” what he knows “is best.” and senator clark of pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as “meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.” well, i, for one, resent
38、 it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as “the masses.” this is a term we havent applied to ourselves in america. but beyond that, “the full power of centralized government” - this was the very thing the founding fathers sought to minimi
39、ze. they knew that governments dont control things. a government cant control the economy without controlling people. and they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. they also knew, those founding fathers, that outside of its legitimate fun
40、ctions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.senator humphrey last week charged that barry goldwater, as president, would seek to eliminate farmers. he should do his homework a little better, because hell find out that weve had a decline of 5 millio
41、n in the farm population under these government programs. hell also find that the democratic administration has sought to get from congress an extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. hell find that theyve also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldnt
42、keep books as prescribed by the federal government. the secretary of agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. and contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers
43、 from the soil.at the same time, theres been an increase in the department of agriculture employees. theres now one for every 30 farms in the united states, and still they cant tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for austria disappeared without a trace and billie sol estes never left shore.ever
44、y responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how - who are farmers to know whats best for them? the wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. the government passed it anyway. now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the
45、farmer goes down.meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. private property rights are so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. in a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see su
46、ch spectacles as in cleveland, ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a “more compatible use of the land.” the president tells us hes now going to start building public housing units in the thousands,
47、 where heretofore weve only built them in the hundreds. but fha federal housing authority and the veterans administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units theyve taken back through mortgage foreclosure. for three decades, weve sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government pl
48、anning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. the latest is the area redevelopment agency.theyve just declared rice county, kansas, a depressed area. rice county, kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. and when the government tells you youre depressed, lie down and be depressed.we have so many people who cant see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. so theyre going t