I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: your time has come - and gone. It's time for change in America.
Interpretation
The quote calls for a transformative shift against greed and complacency in society.
William J. Clinton's quote emphasizes the necessity for change in America, directly confronting those who prioritize greed and maintain the status quo. It serves as a rallying cry for progress and reform, suggesting that the current state of affairs is no longer acceptable and that new ideas and actions are urgently needed for a better future.
In practice
This quote could be used in a political rally to inspire supporters to push for policies that drive change.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Travel is similar to therapy. You can go to the best psychologist in the world for ten years. If you don't feel like actively shifting anything in your life, there is nothing that person can do to change you.
Queer black characters have been the sidekick for long enough. It's time for us to finally take the lead.
It is in revolutionary periods that the culmination of previous trends and the beginning of new ones appear.
The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.
I did say, at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.
Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.
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