Author Topic: Best speeches  (Read 611 times)

Offline Mako15

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Best speeches
« on: August 22, 2006, 09:48:27 PM »
Hey guys <>
Just wondering what you guys thought were the best speeches ever made...doesnt matter by who...can also be just quotes.

one of my favorites is the one by Winston Churchill honoring RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain

"Never, in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed by so many, to so few."   Winston Churchill

also like FDR's Pearl Harbor speech

"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy....the United States of America was suddenly and deliberetly attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."   Franklin D. Roosevelt

Offline midnight Target

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« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2006, 09:59:39 PM »
Bush is like a dirt devil... if he doesn't get that vacation time in Crawford to recharge his batteries he just can't suck like he should.....

Steven Colbert 2006

Offline Clutz

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« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2006, 10:02:37 PM »
Friends, Romans,Countrymen, lend me your ears.


I had to learn it word for word in highschool. :)

Offline Toad

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« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2006, 10:05:22 PM »
Churchill has several good ones.

MacArthur's at West Point is pretty good too.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

Offline Shuckins

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« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2006, 10:05:26 PM »
Gettysburg Address:  Four Score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...conceived in liberty...and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Their Finest Hour:  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."


End of War Speech:  (Douglas MacArthur):  War, the malignant scourge, and greatest sin of mankind, can no longer be tolerated, only Abolished.

We are in a new era.  If we do not devise some greater means of settling disputes between nations, Armageddon will be at our door.  We have had our last chance.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2006, 10:13:48 PM by Shuckins »

Offline midnight Target

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« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2006, 10:12:46 PM »
Alright.. if you want a real one...

Quote
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That is the true genius of America, a faith -- a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.


Barak Obama 2004 Dem Convention.

Offline Toad

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« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2006, 10:44:39 PM »
Oh, yeah, without a doubt the world's greatest real speech.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

Offline bj229r

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« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2006, 10:59:09 PM »
Reagan's speech at the '64 convention

Quote
This idea -- that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power -- is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream--the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments....
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers

http://www.flamewarriors.net/forum/

Offline Sandman

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« Reply #8 on: August 22, 2006, 11:05:24 PM »
Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a ****. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his bellybutton got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his bellybutton is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
sand

Offline Kurt

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« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2006, 11:16:18 PM »
Quote

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on 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 the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Winston Churchill, Addressing the House of Commons, June 4, 1940


If any better quote exists, I challenge you to find it.
--Kurt
Supreme Exalted Grand Pooh-bah Clown
Clowns of Death <Now Defunct>
'A pair of jokers beats a pair of aces'

Offline JB88

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« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2006, 11:19:27 PM »
We're all very different people.

   
                   
We're not Watusi.
We're not Spartans.

   
                   
We're Americans.
With a capital A, huh?

   
                   
You know what that means?

   
                   
Do you? That means
that our forefathers...

   
                   
...were kicked out of every
decent country in the world.

   
                   
We are the wretched refuse.

   
                   
We're the underdog.
We're mutts.

   
                   
- Here's proof. His nose is cold.
- So is his brain.

   
                   
But there's no animal
that's more faithful...

   
                   
...that's more loyal,
more loveable than the mutt.

   
                   
Who saw Old Yeller?

   
                   
Who cried when Old Yeller
got shot at the end?

   
                   
Nobody cried when Old Yeller
got shot? I'm sure.

   
                   
I cried my eyes out.

   
                   
Yeah.

   
                   
So we're all dogfaces.
We're all very, very different.

   
                   
But there is one thing
that we all have in common.

   
                   
We were all stupid enough
to enlist in the Army.

   
                   
We're mutants.

   
                   
There's something wrong with us,
something very, very wrong with us.

   
                   
Something seriously wrong with us.

   
                   
We're soldiers,
but we're American soldiers.

   
                   
We've been kicking bellybutton for     years!
We're    and  !

   
                   
Now we don't have to worry...

   
                   
...about whether or not
we've practiced.

   
                   
We don't have to worry...

   
                   
...about whether Captain Stillman
wants to have us hung.

   
                   
All we have to do...

   
                   
...is to be the great American
fighting soldier...

   
                   
...that is inside each one of us.

   
                   
Now, do what I do...

   
                   
...and say what I say...

   
                   
...and make me proud.

   
                   
- Fall in!
- Yeah!
this thread is doomed.
www.augustbach.com  

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. -Ulysses.

word.

Offline Sandman

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« Reply #11 on: August 31, 2006, 12:43:28 AM »
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular." - Edward R. Murrow, 1954
sand

Offline Neubob

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« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2006, 12:52:13 AM »
All good candidates.

However, I'm partial to the speech I gave my 22 year old wife on why she shouldn't get breast implants. It was the most amazing piece of rhetoric devised in the history of man, and as much as it shocks me to look back on it now, during it's infamous delivery just a few short months ago, I believed every single word.

Offline FUNKED1

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« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2006, 02:29:42 AM »
Patton's "Destroyed Land" speech.

Offline AquaShrimp

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« Reply #14 on: August 31, 2006, 02:33:39 AM »
I dislike speeches with too many metaphors.  I really dislike George Bush's speech writer.  His speeches are awful (and not just in presentation).