Another great speech on my birthday. There were many great lines and passages in Obama’s speech. Here’s one:

I get it.  I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this
office.  I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my
career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you
tonight because all across America something is stirring.  What the
nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about
me.  It’s been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have
stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past.  You
understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to
try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a
different result.  You have shown what history teaches us – that at
defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from
Washington.  Change comes to Washington.  Change happens because the
American people demand it – because they rise up and insist on new
ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I
believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming.
Because I’ve seen it.  Because I’ve lived it.  I’ve seen it in
Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more
families from welfare to work.  I’ve seen it in Washington, when we
worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more
accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear
weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I’ve seen it in this
campaign.  In the young people who voted for the first time, and in
those who got involved again after a very long time.  In the
Republicans who never thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but
did.  I’ve seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back
a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who
re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a
stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This
country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what
makes us rich.  We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s
not what makes us strong.  Our universities and our culture are the
envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our
shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit – that American
promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that
binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our
eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around
the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance.  It’s a
promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a
promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led immigrants to
cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to
picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.