History's Greatest Speeches

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.
--Pearl Strachan

Words, from the time memorial have influenced the masses, grabbed the attention of people in so many revolutionary movements, has been a powerful tool in motivating, influencing, persuading, informing, translating, or simply entertaining the huge number of fans.

They made heroes overnight, brought down the greatest of empires and brought up equally resounding governments, catapulted simplest of human beings into fame and glory-etching their names in the history as the most powerful, legendary and evergreen souls.

Leaders from Adolf Hitler to Martin Luther King, Jr. and or even modern political figures such as President-elect Barack Obama are effective orators who used oratory to have a significant impact on society. The speeches of politicians are often widely analysed by both theirs fans and detractors.

In this post i will try to present some of the outstanding, spirited, emotional and controversial speeches of the contemporary world. At first i thought of naming this post as "Top 10 Greatest Speeches of History", but when i read/listened them not a single one deserved partiality. Every speech is a Master Piece in it's own way, having a specific purpose, directed towards achieving the goals of the PEOPLE or rather a NATION to whom the speech was delivered.

There is no true orator who is not a hero.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sermon on the Mount - Jesus Christ

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount is a compilation of Jesus' sayings, epitomizing his moral teaching. Jesus of Nazareth gave this sermon (estimated around AD 30) on a mountainside to his disciples and a large crowd. Matthew groups Jesus' teachings into five discourses, of which the Sermon on the Mount is the first. The others concern instructions for the disciples, parables of the Kingdom, instructions for the Church, and a harsh denunciation of scribes and pharisees. [Read More] [Listen].


Galileo Affair

The Galileo affair, in which Galileo Galilei came into conflict with the Catholic Church over his support of Copernican astronomy, is often considered a defining moment in the history of the relationship between religion and science. [Read More] [Listen: Part-1, Part-2].


Give me Liberty or give me Death - Patrick Henry

"Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" is a famous quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech made to the Virginia Convention. It was given March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, and is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution delivering the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War. Supposedly in attendance were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Reportedly, the crowd, upon hearing the speech, shouted, "To arms! To arms!" [Read More] [Listen].


The Declaration of Independence - Thomas Jefferson

Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress. [Read More] [Listen].


Blood and Iron - Otto Von Bismarck

Blood and Iron (German: Blut und Eisen) is the title of a famous speech by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck given in 1862 about the unification of the German territories. It is also a famous transposed phrase that Bismarck uttered near the end of the speech that has become one of his most famous quotations. Although Bismarck was an outstanding diplomat, the phrase "blood and iron" has become a popular description of his foreign policy partly because he did on occasion resort to war in a highly effective manner to aid in the unification of Germany and the expansion of its continental power. [Read More] [Listen].


The Gettysburg Address - Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, and that would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant. [Read More] [Listen].


This was their finest hour - Winston Churchill

This was their finest hour speech was delivered by Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 18 June 1940. It was given shortly after he took over as Prime Minister of Britain on 10 May, in the first year of World War II.

It was the third of three speeches which he gave during the period of the Battle of France. These speeches (the other two being the "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech of 13 May, and the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech of 4 June) were a great inspiration to the embattled United Kingdom as it entered what was probably the most dangerous phase of the entire war. [Read More] [Listen].

The Infamy/Pearl Harbor Speech - Franklin Roosevelt

The Infamy Speech was delivered on December 8, 1941, by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one day after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii. The address is regarded as one of the most famous American political speeches of the 20th century. [Read More] [Listen].


The Quit India Speech - Mahatma Gandhi

The Quit India speech is a speech made by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8th 1942, on the eve of the Quit India movement. He called for determined, but passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to Do or Die. His speech was issued at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, since re-named August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). However, almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of the war in jail.
[Read More].


Tryst With Destiny - Jawaharlal Nehru

Tryst with Destiny was a speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. The speech was made to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India's independence, towards midnight on August 14, 1947. It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history. It is considered in modern India to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India. [Read More] [Listen].


History Will Absolve Me - Fidel Castro

History Will Absolve Me (Spanish:"La historia me absolverá") is the concluding sentence and subsequent title of a four-hour speech made by Fidel Castro on 16 October 1953. Castro made the speech in his own defense in court against the charges brought against him after leading an attack on the Moncada Barracks. Though no record of Castro's words was kept, he reconstructed them later for publication in what was to become the manifesto of his 26th of July Movement. The trial helped propel Castro into the public consciousness as a leading figure in the resistance to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. [Read More]


We will bury you - Nikita Khrushchev

Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev famously used an expression generally translated into English as "We will bury you!" ("Мы вас похороним!", transliterated as My vas pokhoronim!) while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956.Full translation of the quote reads: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" (Нравится вам или нет, но история на нашей стороне. Мы вас закопаем). [Read More]


There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom - Richard Feynman

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom is the title of a famous lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman considered the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms as a more powerful form of synthetic chemistry than those used at the time. [Read More]


Ask not what your country can do for you - John F Kennedy

U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivered his first and only inaugural address on Friday, January 20, 1961, immediately after taking the presidential oath of office administered by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The address is 1364 words and took 13 minutes and 59 seconds to deliver, from the first word to the last word, not including applause at the end, making it the fourth-shortest inaugural address ever delivered. It is widely considered to be among the best presidential inauguration speeches in American history. [Read More] [Listen].


I am Prepared to Die - Nelson Mandela

'I am prepared to die' were the closing words from Mandela’s statement from the dock at the commencement of the defence case in the Rivonia Trial at the Pretoria Supreme Court in April 1964. His speech has been widely reproduced in many forms.

Mandela’s powerful statement revealed his moral integrity and strength of conviction in the struggle for equality for all South Africans.His words garnered support from individuals and organisations across the world, creating a momentum for change which ultimately brought about an end to apartheid in South Africa. [Read More].

I have a Dream - Martin Luther King Jr.

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the historic public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites among others would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. [Read More] [Listen].

Tear Down This Wall - Ronald Reagen

"Tear down this wall!" was the famous challenge from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall.

In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin, by the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear it down as a symbol of Reagan's desire for increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc. [Read More] [Listen].

Sermon on the Mound - Margaret Thatcher

The Sermon on the Mound is the name given by the Scottish press to an address made by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on 21 May 1988. In the address, Thatcher offered a theological justification for her ideas on capitalism and the market economy. She claimed "Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform" and she quoted St Paul by saying "If a man will not work he shall not eat". [Read More]


Gazimestan Speech - Slobodan Milošević

The Gazimestan speech was a speech given on 28 June 1989 by Slobodan Milošević, then President of Serbia. It was the centrepiece of a day-long event to mark the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, in which the medieval Serbian kingdom had been defeated by the Ottoman Empire. The speech was delivered to a huge crowd gathered at the place where the battle had been fought, Gazimestan in the Central Kosovo. It came against a backdrop of intense ethnic tension between ethnic Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo and increasing political tensions between Serbia and the other constituent republics of the then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. [Read More] [Listen].

A More Perfect Union - Barack Obama

"A More Perfect Union" is the name of a speech delivered by United States President-elect Barack Obama on March 18, 2008 in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Speaking before an audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 18 of that year, Obama was responding to a spike in the attention paid to controversial remarks made by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech, a participant in his campaign. Obama directed to the broader issue of race in the United States.

On March 27, 2008, the Pew Research Center called the speech "arguably the biggest political event of the campaign so far," noting that 85 percent of Americans said they had heard at least a little about the speech and that 54 percent said they heard a lot about it. Eventually, The New Yorker opined that the speech helped elect Obama as the President of the United States. [Read More] [Listen].

Your Comments and Suggestions on these 20 greatest speeches are most welcome.

Speech Summary Source: Wikipedia

Tagged Under: speeches, history, oratory, oration