"You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you."
"The true test of the American ideal is whether we're able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life's big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams."
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Source: Commencement Address at Knox College, delivered 4 June 2005, Galesburg, Illinois
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