名稱：31 Today I say to you that the challenges
內容簡介：
晨讀英語美文 名人演講
[00:00.16]Today I say to you that the challenges
[00:02.72] we face are real. They are serious and they are many.
[00:06.50]They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.
[00:10.51]But know this, America-they will be met.
[00:13.68]On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear,
[00:25.80]unity of purpose over conflict and discord.On this day,
[00:32.27]we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises,
[00:37.17] the recriminations and worn out dogmas,
[00:39.67]that for far too long have strangled our politics.
[00:42.75]We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture,
[00:49.34] the time has come to set aside childish things.
[00:52.90] The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit;
[00:58.21]to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift,
[01:02.32] that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation:
[01:06.06]the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free,
[01:10.90]and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
[01:14.36]In reaffirming the greatness of our nation,
[01:27.05] we understand that greatness is never a given.
[01:30.46] It mustbe earned.
[01:32.71]Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less.
[01:37.38]It has not been the path for the faint-hearted—
[01:40.12]for those who prefer leisure over work,
[01:42.83] or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather,
[01:48.09] it has been the risk-takers, the doers,
[01:50.51]the makers of things—
[01:52.26]some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor,
[01:56.86] who have carried us up the long,
[01:59.79]rugged path towards pros-perity and freedom.For us,
[02:02.19]they packed up their few worldly possessions
[02:07.83] and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
[02:10.57]For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West;
[02:15.57]endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.For us,
[02:21.55] they fought and died,
[02:23.01] in places like Concord and Gettysburg;
[02:26.01] Normandy and Khe Sanh.
[02:28.37]Time and again these men and women struggled
[02:32.61] and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw
[02:35.50] so that we might live a better life.
[02:37.40]They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions;
[02:42.34]greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
[02:46.87]This is the journey we continue today.
[02:50.51]We remain the most prosperous,
[02:53.64] powerful nation on Earth.
[02:54.74] Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began.
[02:58.93] Our minds are no less inventive,
[03:01.15] our goods and services no less needed than they were last week
[03:05.17]or last month or last year.
[03:06.10]Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat,
[03:14.04]of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions—
[03:18.38]that time has surely passed.
[03:20.18]Starting today, we must pick ourselves up,
[03:24.56]dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.