Great Speeches in History

[GasX]

Originally posted by: andylawcc
I haven't witness any of those famous speech in my lifetime (MLK Jr's, JFK, Abe Lincoln's), so my vote will go to...

Bill Clinton's: "I did not have sex with that woman"


it is certainly not the greatest per say, but certainly the most memorable in my lifetime.

Did you hear Bush's speech after 9/11? That was a damn good speech.

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: jjones
"Men, this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of the war, not wanting to fight, is a lot of bullsh!t. Americans love to fight - traditionally.... "

Damn good speech. I never read it before. Thanks jjones.

 

[Parrotheader]

It's hard to pick any individual speech, but Churchill is who immediately popped into my mind too. Another good one of his (and this is just the closing of a much longer speech to Parliament):

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

 

[azazyel]

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: gopunk
Mario Savio - Speech given at the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, Dec 3, 1964

Most definitely...this is the one about the cogs of the machine and how colleges are the companies and the students are the raw materials, right? GREAT speech. It introduced the idea of participatory democracy.

Another great one was Ted Kennedy's "Some men see things as they are and ask why," speech at his brother's funeral.

I thought that was FDR..

Edit: Some men see things as they are and ask, why? I dream of things that never were and ask, why not?? ~Robert F. Kennedy (I used to have this haning on my wall as a kid)

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: aircooled
Churchill

"We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France
We shall fightover the seas and oceans.
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be
we shall fight on beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight on the hills.
We shall never surrender."

(remember the Maiden song?? )

My favorite.

"Remove all the wheel blocks, there's not time to waste.....do or die....Ace's High"

 

[GasX]

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html
MP3's and transcripts available:

Here's their top 10:

1 Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have A Dream"
2 John Fitzgerald Kennedy - "Inaugural Address"
3 Franklin Delano Roosevelt - "First Inaugural Address"
4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt - "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation"
5 Barbara Charline Jordan - "1976 DNC Keynote Address"
6 Richard Milhous Nixon - "Checkers"
7 Malcolm X - "The Ballot or the Bullet"
8 Ronald Wilson Reagan Shuttle - ''Challenger'' Disaster Address
9 John Fitzgerald Kennedy - "Houston Ministerial Association Speech"
10 Lyndon Baines Johnson - "We Shall Overcome"

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html
MP3's and transcripts available:

Here's their top 10:

1 Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have A Dream"
2 John Fitzgerald Kennedy - "Inaugural Address"
3 Franklin Delano Roosevelt - "First Inaugural Address"
4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt - "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation"
5 Barbara Charline Jordan - "1976 DNC Keynote Address"
6 Richard Milhous Nixon - "Checkers"
7 Malcolm X - "The Ballot or the Bullet"
8 Ronald Wilson Reagan Shuttle - ''Challenger'' Disaster Address
9 John Fitzgerald Kennedy - "Houston Ministerial Association Speech"
10 Lyndon Baines Johnson - "We Shall Overcome"

Excellent link I will have to check out at home sometime.

 

[Red Dawn]

"There's an old saying in Tennessee ? I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee ? that says, fool me once, shame on ? shame on you. Fool me ? you can't get fooled again." ?George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002