To forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing, until the accommodation itself becomes our principle. In that way and over time we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice any principle...

... I’m afraid that is where we now find ourselves...

... This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better ...

... We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.

I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that...

... the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women — none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited...

... What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career doesn’t mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.