I have always loved great speeches. A long time ago I found a series of the greatest speeches in history on Caedmon LP Records at the Eau Claire Public Library. I would go into the sound booth and play everyone of them over and over again. It did not matter whether or not I agreed with the speaker or whether or not I endorsed his/her ideas. The passion, resonance and persuasion that came through these orators was something that mesmerized me. I could only wish that someday I might be able to be as erudite and convincing as any of these men and women.
Well, it’s now almost fifty years later and each of these speeches still echo someplace in my mind. You might wonder how Jesus or Pericles managed to be recorded. Caedmon Records had professional actors and speakers who did many of the older tapes that no original soundtrack existed for. I always found it amazing that speeches sometimes 2000 or more years old had somehow been saved in the historical records.
So, my friends, here are my picks for the top 15 speeches of all time. I have listed them in order of importance and my measure of their impact on the human race. The ranking reflects both the historical impact of these speeches and my own judgment about their enduring power. Ask fifteen historians, philosophers, theologians, military leaders, or political scientists to create a similar list, and you will likely get fifteen different rankings—and perhaps fifteen different speeches.
1. The Sermon on the Mount
Speaker: Jesus of Nazareth
The most influential moral speech in human history.
Theme: Compassion, mercy, humility, forgiveness.
Memorable verse: “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.”
2. Pericles’ Funeral Oration
Speaker: Pericles
The foundational speech of democratic citizenship.
Theme: Duty, sacrifice, democracy.
Memorable verse: “Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors’, but is an example to them.”
3. The Gettysburg Address
Speaker: Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps the most perfect speech ever written in the English language.
Theme: Equality and democratic government.
Memorable verse: “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
4. The Apology of Socrates
Speaker: Socrates
The ultimate defense of free inquiry and intellectual honesty.
Theme: Truth over his own life.
Memorable verse: “Someone might say: ‘Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have followed the kind of occupation that has led to your being now in danger of death?’ However, I should be right to reply to him: You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.”’
5. Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms
Speaker: Martin Luther
One man’s conscience against an empire and a church.
Theme: Individual conscience.
Memorable verse: “I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither right nor safe to go against conscience. God help me.”
6. “I Have a Dream”
Speaker: Martin Luther King Jr.
The greatest civil-rights speech ever delivered.
Theme: Equality and reconciliation.
Memorable verse: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”’
7. Rivonia Trial Speech
Speaker: Nelson Mandela
A defense of democracy while facing possible execution.
Theme: Justice and freedom.
Memorable verse: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
8. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Speaker: Frederick Douglass
One of history’s most devastating moral critiques.
Theme: Hypocrisy and liberty.
Memorable verse: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
9. Ain’t I a Woman?
Speaker: Sojourner Truth
A powerful intersection of race, gender, and human dignity.
Theme: Equality and humanity.
Memorable verse: “Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.”
10. I Will Fight No More Forever
Speaker: Chief Joseph
Perhaps the most heartbreaking speech in American history.
Theme: Loss, dignity, and peace.
Memorable verse: “I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
11. The Ballot or the Bullet
Speaker: Malcolm X
I would actually choose this over several of his police-brutality speeches because it captures his ideas at their most mature and influential.
Theme: Self-determination and political power.
Memorable verse: “Uncle Sam’s hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country. He’s the earth’s number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity — yes, he has — imagine him posing as the leader of the free world. The free world! And you over here singing “We Shall Overcome.”’
12. The Quit India Speech
Speaker: Mahatma Gandhi
One of the greatest calls for nonviolent resistance.
Theme: Freedom through moral courage.
Memorable verse: “People may laugh, nevertheless that is my claim. At a time when I may have to launch the biggest struggle of my life, I may not harbor hatred against anybody.”
13. The “Dare, Dare Again, Always Dare” Speech
Speaker: Georges Danton
Delivered during the crisis of the French Revolution.
Theme: Courage in the face of tyranny.
Memorable verse: “To conquer, gentlemen, we must dare, dare again, always dare, and so save France.”
14. Farewell Address to Congress
Speaker: Douglas MacArthur
A brilliant defense of a military career and a strategic vision.
Theme: Duty, honor, and service.
Memorable speech: “I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.”
15. The Tilbury Address to the English Troops
Speaker: Queen Elizabeth I
A speech that roused the English troops to victory over Spain
Theme: Trust, gratitude, courage and commitment
Memorable verse: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.”
Conclusions:
I confess I have done scant justice and perhaps irreparable harm to the great speeches that have been rendered by men and women throughout history. No doubt from my selection, you will say that I have ignored many South American, Australian, Asian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese orators. You will be right. My index of speeches has never been swollen with speeches from these areas and countries. Would that I have another two or more lives to live, I swear I would rectify that problem.
I ask forgiveness for anyone I have admitted who is on your list of “greatest speeches.” I would ask you to take a minute or two and include your favorites in my comments section. Over my years on this planet, many of these speeches have sustained my faith in humanity and progress by the words of these moral and courageous leaders. I have several other speeches that I could have included but as with blogs, we only have a limited amount of time to allocate to them.
I would encourage you to take a moment to read some of the speeches I have listed. In the treacherous and devious era that we now live in, maybe you will gain some measure of faith that humanity will continue to learn and become a better race than we appear to be.
When I look at humanity, I do not see a completed masterpiece. I see a chrysalis. We are often selfish, fearful, and divided, yet beneath those imperfections lies the possibility of something greater. The question is not whether humanity has flaws; the question is whether we are still becoming. The caterpillar and the butterfly are the same creature separated only by growth.
Perhaps the same is true for all of us.
Aging Capriciously 