“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.”
Many sentences from President Barack Obama’s speech today will ring throughout history. I especially liked his string of traits in this passage. They aren’t the common ones. Yes, patriotism was there but so was curiosity. Curiosity speaks to America’s spirit of innovation – something we need to revive to meet environmental and other challenges. That desire to know more is one trait which will pull our nation up from its burdens.
There are few times when I felt at that moment I witnessed history – when my parents woke me up to see the first man on the moon, when the space shuttle exploded – this was another. Truly a new era has begun…