radio address https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/11/20081101.html (1 November 2008)
2000s, 2008
“Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle that we are all created equal. The project of each generation is to bridge the meaning of those founding words with the realities of changing times -- a never-ending quest to ensure those words ring true for every single American. Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens. And then sometimes, there are days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”
2015, Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality (June 2015)
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Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961Related quotes
“It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.”
Radio and television report to the American people on civil rights (11 June 1963)]
1963, Civil Rights Address
BBC News: "John McAfee: Addict, coder, runaway" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24441931 (11 October 2013)
1960s, The American Promise (1965)
Context: This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal" — "government by consent of the governed" — "give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives. Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
Carter: President Trump Made Right Move on DACA https://buddycarter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2350 (September 5, 2017)
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 508; this begins with a phrase derived from one in the Tao Te Ching, by Laozi
1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), The Wellspring of Reality