What's your favourite speech?

[nithig]

Mine would have to be the sermon on the mount.

How secure is that?

We're told clearly that there's no cause to worry about material needs ....
they will be taken care of. And the comparative images are so familiar and friendly ... the birds in the air ... the flowers ...

What a grand message for this consumer driven, sick, unhappy society whose members think they have to store up in barns, and out -status the lilies in the field.

What's yours?

[catherine]

I'd have to say MLK's Drum Major Instinct.

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/

Particularly because of this passage, which I have tried to imprint on my kids' minds--


And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That's a new definition of greatness.

And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.

[nithig]

I'm glad he made it into the thread catherine ... his "I had a dream" is in my top 5. This one I hadn't come across before ... wasn't he a wonderful orator!

[redfox]

My grouchy, sarcastic self wants to say "The one I give the day I quit my job", but actually my top two are MLK's Riverside Church speech, and Lincoln's Gettysburg address.

[bae]

Alexander III of Macedon's "Depart!" speech, delivered in Opis, Mesopotamia, August 324 BC, as per Arrian.

Marcus Tullius Cicero's Catilinarian Orations, and his Philippicae.

[LDAHL]

Demosthenes’ Phillipics – For pure oratorical ferocity.
Washington’s Farewell Address – For all he got right about the future.
Churchill’s Three Battle of France Speeches – For defiance and determination.

[catherine]

My grouchy, sarcastic self wants to say "The one I give the day I quit my job"

Don't you love the speeches you write in your head when you're driving--either to your boss or SO or whatever? Good one, redfox. Someday maybe I'll get the courage to actually give one of THOSE speeches!

[nithig]

Someday maybe I'll get the courage to actually give one of THOSE speeches!
just keep reading redfox's signature! :-)

[Xmac]

This is the last part of the speech Gandhi gave in a courtroom when he was brought up on charges of sedition in 1922. The full speech is available at:

http://www.mkgandhi.org/speeches/gto1922.htm

In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiples evil, and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil, and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country, and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to the common weal.

[puglogic]

I have many, but the one that comes to mind fastest is Lincoln's Second Inaugural:


Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.

Of course we can't hear it, but reading it on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial is enough to bring me to tears.

[goldensmom]

I’ll second the Sermon on the Mount. I think of it as a message but I guess it could termed a speech. I’ve studied the Sermon on the Mount every January for the last 30+ years as a way to prepare myself for a new year. Always more to learn from that particular message.