Paul Tsongas: That's a good question. Let me try to evade you.

I wish I had spent more time at the office.

Paul Tsongas

office wish time

You cannot be pro-jobs and anti-business at the same time. You cannot love employment and hate employers.

Paul Tsongas

employment hate jobs

No one on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time on my business."

Paul Tsongas

business wish death

The core of America is not racist. It is not hostile to women. It is increasingly offended by gay bashing. Yet it abhors government waste. It believes strongly in fiscal responsibility such as balanced budgets. It is pro-economic growth. It is concerned about the environment. It is intolerant of people on welfare who disdain the notion of work. But it wants poor kids to have school lunches and it wants to spend money to have good schools. In sum, most Americans are sensible, good-hearted, and prudent. The issue, then, is whether there is a political party that can welcome them home.

Paul Tsongas

party home believe

This land, this water, this air, this planet - this is our legacy to our young.

Paul Tsongas

land air water

Let's try winning and see what it feels like. If we don't like it, we can go back to our traditions.

Paul Tsongas

political winning trying

Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfillment.

Paul Tsongas

destiny return greatness

That sense of sacredness, that thinking in generations, must begin with reverence for this earth.

Paul Tsongas

generations nature thinking

Lowell is my home. It is where I drew my first breath. It is where I will always derive a sense of place and a sense of belonging

Paul Tsongas

breaths home firsts

Don't fear your mortality, because it is this very mortality that gives meaning and depth and poignancy to all the days that will be granted to you.

Paul Tsongas

granted depth giving

Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed.

Paul Tsongas

government simple father

Democrats love employees, it's employers they hate.

Paul Tsongas

employers politics hate

I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America's greatness.

Paul Tsongas

greatness leadership america

You are Americans. You love this country. Together we are entrusted with the principles that represent mankind's greatest political and social achievement.

Paul Tsongas

achievement political country

Thinking in generations also means enabling our young to have a decent standard of living.

Paul Tsongas

generations mean thinking

No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.

Paul Tsongas

rights spring war

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

Paul Tsongas

legacy fundamentals children

You can't have employment and despise employers ... No goose, no golden eggs.

Paul Tsongas

golden employment eggs

I am an American. I love this country.

Paul Tsongas

usa country

Seven and half years ago I began my own journey. For me and my family it was a time of adversity. But during that adversity I derived a deeper faith. And born out of that adversity was a commitment to devote myself to those people and to those issues that truly matter to me.

Paul Tsongas

adversity faith commitment