ALBANY — Appealing to the people of New York and calling for an end to the politics of “cynicism and division” in Albany, Governor Spitzer in his inaugural address signaled his intent to use public opinion as a political force to rein in an errant Legislature and push through his agenda.

Facing lawmakers and the former governor of New York, George Pataki, Mr. Spitzer said the ruling elite of Albany has for years failed the people of New York through selfish politics that sent the state drifting backward.

In the most memorable line in the speech, Mr. Spitzer, 47, who took office yesterday as the 54th governor of New York, likened the state to the character of Rip Van Winkle. “Like Rip Van Winkle,” he said, “New York has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by.”

It was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Pataki, the three-term Republican governor who benefited from the rebirth of New York City in the 1990s but was unable to pull the upstate economy out of its long doldrums. After the remark about Rip Van Winkle, Mr. Pataki muttered some words to his wife, Elizabeth Pataki, seated to his right.

But Mr. Spitzer’s criticism of the Albany establishment went beyond Mr. Pataki and was directed also at the Legislature, whose members, including the Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, have been tainted by ethics scandals and investigations.

“In order to return to policies of opportunity and prosperity, we must change the ethics of Albany, and end the politics of cynicism and division in our state,” Mr. Spitzer said. “Those of us who work in the great building behind me must hear and heed the serious responsibility that public service demands and rise to this moment and show the public in words and deeds that we understand that our responsibility is to the people of New York.”

Hours before the speech, Mr. Spitzer signed several executive orders banning employees of state agencies from receiving gifts from lobbyists, prohibiting state employees from appearing in state-paid commercials, and banning the use of state property, such as cars and computers, for non-official purposes, a measure clearly inspired by the scandal that brought down the former comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Twelve years ago, Mr. Pataki, a Republican, took office promising to curb government waste and lower taxes. Mr. Spitzer, while speaking about the need to cut taxes, focused more on building consensus through policies that ask “not what is in it for me, but always what is in it for us.”

Invoking the words of the former presidents and New York governors, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Spitzer stressed the need for “bold” action through pain and effort.

“Easy is spending your tax dollars without consequence of sacrifice. Easy is saying yes to supporters and no to opponents. Easy is looking the other way while costs rise, debts mount, and families lose ground. Easy is what we’ve had, but easy is not where we need to go,” he said.

He said some people would be “threatened” by his plans regarding Medicaid, education, and ethics laws, but the policies would benefit the New York as a whole.

Democrats praised Mr. Spitzer’s speech, with speaker Sheldon Silver, insisting that the governor’s Rip Van Winkle allusion was targeted at Mr. Pataki — and not the legislators. Mr. Bruno, who is a subject of a federal investigation, said he took issue with Mr. Spitzer’s remark.

“I think history will judge the last 12 years…to have been one of the most productive 12 years for the people of New York State, and history will judge that, not rhetoric,” Mr. Bruno said.

It was the most important speech of Mr. Spitzer’s political career, which began 12 years ago when Mr. Spitzer, a young attorney who impressed as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, ran for attorney general and lost. Four years later, Mr. Spitzer won and built a national reputation for his investigations of corporate malfeasance in the aftermath of the collapse of Enron. Mr. Spitzer won a landslide election victory in November against Republican John Faso on a promise to do to Albany what he did to Wall Street.

Mr. Spitzer has said he has no presidential aspirations but that hasn’t stopped speculation about his political future. Mr. Spitzer wouldn’t be the first New York governor coming into office with expectations for higher office. While Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt went from Albany to the White House, the path has eluded others with high ambitions, like Nelson Rockefeller, Thomas Dewey, and Alfred Smith.

Mr. Spitzer is to deliver another critical speech tomorrow when he gives the “State of State” address before both chambers. The speech is expected to be longer and include more policy details.

Mr. Spitzer spoke with a slow, deliberate cadence, with his hands gripping the lectern. His speech was about half the length of Mr. Pataki’s address in 1995 but longer than Governor Carey’s 15-minute speech in 1975.

The crowd of thousands that filled the West Capitol Park in front of the Capitol Building cheered at several points, giving Mr. Spitzer a more sustained applause when he said he would push for “health care reforms” that put “patients first at a cost that all families can afford.”

The inauguration — the first held outdoors in more than 100 years —was attended by thousands of people, a substantially smaller turn out than the 13,000 people who filled the Pepsi Arena for Mr. Pataki’s inauguration.

Mr. Spitzer, who hosted a private gathering of friends and family at the Executive Mansion on Sunday night, officially took the oath of office at 12 a.m. on Monday to insure continuity in executive administration.

Mr. Spitzer said it was his first time inside the Victorian mansion, the official residence of the New York governor since 1877 and what will be Mr. Spitzer’s home when he isn’t in New York City, where lives with his wife and three daughters in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. He said he marveled at a copy of the 1787 state constitution in the main lobby and original notes of the Poughkeepsie Convention, at which New York decided to ratify the American Constitution, with the signatures of John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.

Mr. Spitzer went to bed at 1:30 a.m. and awoke at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for a pre-dawn run around Washington Park with supporters and members of the press.

After signing the executive orders, he attended an interfaith worship service at Westminster Presbyterian Church on State Street, where “Amazing Grace” and “Shalom Aleichem” were sung and readings were performed by several reverends, two rabbis, and an imam.

Mr. Spitzer walked onto the giant circular stage at around 1 p.m. as the Empire State Youth Orchestra played Handel’s “Royal Fireworks.” After Mr. Spitzer’s successor as attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, and his lieutenant-governor running mate, David Paterson, were sworn into office, the orchestra played “Fanfare for the Common Man” and Mr. Spitzer took the oath of office from the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye, holding a black Bible his parents gave him for his attorney general inauguration in 1998.

Afterward, he embraced his wife, Silda Wall, and three daughters. The First Battalion 258th Field Artillery of the New York National Guard fired a 19-gun salute that echoed across the mammoth Department of Education building on Washington Avenue and the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building on South Swan Street.

At 2:30 p.m. Mr. Spitzer welcomed a receiving line of more than 1,000 people — members of the public who won a lottery to meet the governor — at the Executive Mansion. At the same time New Yorkers filled the underground Empire State Plaza Concourse, the long passageway and shopping area used by state employees, to feast on barbecue pork sandwiches, sour pickles, fresh ice cream, locally-made root beer, Buffalo chicken wings, and cheeses food catered by a select group of restaurants around the state.

Spitzer aides estimated the cost of the festivities at $1.5 million, the most expensive inaugural celebration in the history of New York and paid for entirely by Mr. Spitzer’s leftover campaign funds.