What do you consider to be some of the greatest speeches of all time? 1. MLK JR's I have a dream 2. Lou Gehrig's farewell address
Not speeches, but Max Erhmann's poem Desiderata and Mary Schmich's essay Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young are pretty great.
FDR's first inaugural address (The Fear Itself Speech) & "The Infamy Speech" December 8, 1942 The Gettysburg Address by Lincoln Washington's Farewell Address
JFK and Nixon have had some very poignant speeches. Nixon's legacy may be infamous, but he had some great speeches. I'm beginning to appreciate Ronald Reagan's speeches more so now a days, too. After Reagan, there was something that I think was almost permanently lost in either the speech writing or the delivery of presidential orations.
JFK's "New Frontier" speech is a particular favorite of mine. And Regan's speech after Challenger blew up in '85 was a very beautiful speech about man reaching out and touching the hand of God. It's sad, but it's a great speech.
The Zion brother on Gundam 08th MS team, Ra's speech on MS Gundam Seed, and Marimeia on Gundam Endless Waltz.
The speech made popular by the Bethel School District v. Fraser Supreme Court case. ;P Brilliant. But, in all seriousness, even though it was never spoken, and just printed in every paper in existance, Washington's Farewell Adress. When Obama quoted it in his inaugrual speech, I knew we were in good hands. Some of it is outdated, but the part about avoiding political parties is something I wish this country was still striving to do.
Colonel Guile's inspirational speech: YouTube - Guile Speech from Street Fighter The Movie - with Subtitles I couldn't find a link to M. Bison's equally amazing inspirational speech. He has too many. My favorite one is the one where he talks about Tuesday.
The speech that David Foster Wallace gave to the graduating class of Kenyon College in 2005. Really, it's worth the read (or again if you've already read it). From the speech: “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”
Link to Full Text Also, the speech that Captain America (Steve Rogers) delivered to Spider-Man during the Civil War: Link
In no particular order... Gettsyburg Address. He didn't even plan on that speech prior to arriving there, and the papers at the time trashed it. Washington's Farwell Address. Mount Olives Discourse. Because none of them after Reagan knew how to really write a speech. I know Reagan didn't write all of his, but he was skilled at writing them, and it showed. Even Obama, who has been mentioned twice in this thread, doesn't write his own. It's not a bash against him, just a lament over the loss of this particular skill in our Presidents in general.
Uh, Obama most certainly his own speeches. Where are you getting your information from? Regardless of politics, the man has written two books and wrote both his speech at the 2004 convention (when he wasn't really known outside of Chicago) and his nomination acceptance speech in Denver (to name two off the top of my head). Of course once a draft is written, it is circulated within a small group of advisors (including David Axelrod and Jon Favreau; no not that one!) who offer suggestions and help write or offer suggestions. Obama is the MAIN writer, though, as Presidents have the final say in the end product. Obama's speeches are collaborative just as they were during Reagan's administration. It's the same: Obama currently has one speech writer (the 27 year old Jon Favreau) and Reagan employed many over his two terms (most notably, perhaps Peggy Noonan who wrote the speech given after the Challenger explosion). Again, I'm not saying anything about the personal politics of either of these men, but Reagan certainly relied on speech writers to author his speeches and collaborated with them by giving them ideas or themes as well as editing the drafts. He had the final say in the process, which is what writing these speeches has become since the development of radio. Obama's speeches are written in exactly the same manner today; there is no difference. This isn't a knock on the writing abilities of Presidents, but simply they don't have the time to write their own speeches without help from others. They do collaborate on major speeches and specifically will edit those drafts in order to make the language more natural for themselves, but every President since Eisenhower has had someone working for him with the title "speechwriter" as their position. (Prior to that, going back to Washington, advice was given on speeches: it was even then collaborative to a degree.) I'm not saying anything in regard to the specific policies of either of these men as politicians, but as speech writers, please make sure what you say is correct prior to posting.
Churchill's we shall fight them on the beaches, Blood, toil, tears, and sweat, This was their finest hour,Never was so much owed by so many to so few the speeches that inspired the British people to fight on alone until the day of Imfamy came and US came into the war also Gen. Douglas Macarthur's old soilder's never die speech and go a bit holywood the president's speech in Independence Day
Alec Baldwin's speech in Glengarry Glenn Ross. Kevin Costner's speech/closing remarks at the end of JFK. Col. Jerry Sage *WWII POW and nicknamed "The Cooler King" for being put in the cooler after countless excapes* gave a speech to my 8th grade civics class about how eating roaches while escaping would always better than eating stew and bread in defeat. any speech from "Casino." Opening speech from the movie "Patton".
