The Greatest Speech Ever Made?

Yozz76

Yozz76

Yozz76

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So apt given the mess the world is in right now. No idea why but I'm in such a reflective mood today!

 
Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up!
 
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Carl Sagan said:
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there*– on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
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My favourite.
 
setter said:
Like this one here from Colonel Tim collins, adressing the men of the royal irish prior to the invasion of iraq.

http://journal.dajobe.org/journal/2003/03/collins/
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The locals appreciated that one, one Iraqi I encountered over there wouldn't stop banging on about Tim Collins and wanted to know if any of us had met him etc... Certainly was a good speech and clearly sent out the right message.
 
dowie said:
The locals appreciated that one, one Iraqi I encountered over there wouldn't stop banging on about Tim Collins and wanted to know if any of us had met him etc... Certainly was a good speech and clearly sent out the right message.
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A mate of mine who's in the irish guards met him in basra, said he was a pretty decent sort of a guy.

Squark said:
Ahhhh everything the Americans didn't do!

Wise words though, very true.
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Too gung ho the yanks, theyve seen to many movies i reckon.
 
"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place... and I don´t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life. But ain't about how hard you hit... It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward... how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That´s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you worth, go out and get what you worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers saying: You ain´t what you wanna be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain´t you! You´re better than that!"
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Gets me every time
 
The Churchill 'never surrender' speech is probably the greatest ever by a British politician - it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it when I think about the circumstances under which it was made - but on a worldwide stage, I don't think you can beat some of JFK's epics.

Ranging from his inaugural address "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." to the one made at a university earlier in the year he was assassinated that contained this eloquent passage on the subject of seeking peace with the Soviet Union:

For, in the final analysis, our most basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future ... and we are all mortal.
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The man was an awesome orator and makes Blair and co look like the political pygmies they are.
 
Adnams Drinker said:
The Churchill 'never surrender' speech is probably the greatest ever by a British politician - it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it when I think about the circumstances under which it was made - but on a worldwide stage, I don't think you can beat some of JFK's epics.

Ranging from his inaugural address "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." to the one made at a university earlier in the year he was assassinated that contained this eloquent passage on the subject of seeking peace with the Soviet Union:



The man was an awesome orator and makes Blair and co look like the political pygmies they are.
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Yup, he knew what war was and to serve in the armed forces, imagine Blair/Brown/Cameron trying to give a speech like that

My grandma told me when that came on the "wireless" it was something else.
 
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