A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life.
Paul Tsongas

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.
Paul Tsongas

America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture.
Paul Tsongas

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

From a viable economy to the full funding of Headstart, from a clean environment to true equality for women, from a strong military to a commitment to racial brotherhood, from schools that are honored to streets free of excessive violence.
Paul Tsongas

I am an American. I love this country.
Paul Tsongas

I have pretty much made up my mind to do this.
Paul Tsongas

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

In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root.
Paul Tsongas

It was a myth that's often perpetuated at commencement that holds that only hope and promise lie beyond the halls of academe. Don't worry, be happy. Everything is fine.
Paul Tsongas


Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium.
Paul Tsongas

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

My father's generation gave to my generation a land of wealth and purpose and world economic dominance.
Paul Tsongas

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

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

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

Our only weapons in this war of your lifetime are the weapons of the mind.
Paul Tsongas

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

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

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