Editor’s note: Richard Nixon, U.S.A.37Served as President. Nixon had eloquence and extraordinary speaking skills and was recognized as a "genius orator." This article is excerpted from him1969Year1month20The inaugural address of the first president on the 7762_7812th day. Nixon expounded his philosophy in tactful and literary words: "Our destiny does not give us the wine of despair",But the cup of opportunity. ”

Riders on the Earth Together

Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique.

But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries. This can be such a moment. Forces now are converging that make possible, for the first time, the hope that many of man’s deepest aspirations can at last be realized.

As the Apollo astronauts flew over the moon’s gray surface on Christmas Eve, they spoke to us of the beauty of earth —and in that voice so clear across the lunar distance, we heard them invoke God’s blessing on its goodness.

In that moment, their view from the moon moved poet Archibald MacLeish to write:

"To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers."

Our destiny offers, not the cup of despair, but the chalice of opportunity.So let us seize it, not in fear, but in gladness —and "riders on the earth together", let us go forward, firm in our faith, steadfast in our purpose, cautious of the dangers, but sustained by our confidence in the will of God and the promise of man.