Greatest extemporaneous speeches of all time

[Randy_Seltzer]

I’ve been listening to a podcast about the history of the Byzantine empire, “12 Byzantine Rulers,” and in the episode about Justinian, it tells a wonderful story. The emperor had changed the laws so that he could marry Theodora, a commoner who he felt was his intellectual equal. There came a time of revolt in Constantinople, and Justinian shut himself in the palace, fearful and hesitant. He gathered his advisors, who suggested he retreat by sea, and live out a comfortable retirement elsewhere. Theodora, stepped forward, gave an impassioned speech. Here’s the excerpt from the podcast:

“I do not care whether or not it is proper for a woman to give brave counsel to frightened men. But in moments of extreme danger, conscience is the only guide. Every man who is born into the light of day must sooner or later die, and how can an emperor ever allow himself to become a fugitive? If you, my lord, wish to save your skin, you will have no difficulty in doing so. We are rich. There is the sea. There too are our ships. But consider first whether when you reach safety, you will not regret that you did not choose death in preference. As for me, I stand by the ancient saying: ‘The imperial purple makes the best shroud.’”

The emperor, inspired, took action, crushing the rebellion. Historians generally agree that Theodora’s speech (if not apocryphal) probably saved the crown, and thus, possibly the entire Byzantine empire.

This got me thinking: what other great extemporaneous speeches are there? Most great speeches are written well in advance, rehearsed, and reworked many times.

For this discussion, let’s say it counts as extemporaneous if the speaker had less than a few hours to prepare it.

Here’s a few I’ve come up with:[ul][li]532 - Theodora - “to die as a King or to live as nothing.” (If anyone has the full text of this, that would be neat.)[]1415 - Henry V of England - Speech at Agincourt. (Shakespeare’s version is, according to what I’ve read, based at least somewhat on an actual speech given to the army. As far as I know, the actual text does not survive.) []1775 - Patrick Henry - “give me liberty or give me death” (Many accounts claim that this speech was off the cuff. I have my doubts.) []1877 - Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce - “my heart is sick and sad” (Not really inspirational, but definitely powerful, and almost certainly extemporaneous.)[]1939 - Lou Gehrig - “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth” (I have no idea whether this was improvised. It seems unlikely, but it was performed without notes, and with lots of hesitation between sentences, so I’ll throw it on here just to be safe.) 1968 - Robert F. Kenedy - “Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight” (Probably written hastily in the two-or-so hours before it was delivered. I have no idea how extemporaneous it actually was.)[/ul][/li]
I notice, in searching for examples, that there really aren’t very many in the last 100 years. There aren’t even many candidates: all the great speeches are prewritten. Is the truly improvised inspirational speech a myth? A thing of the past? There are TONS of fictional examples. Where are the historical ones?

[WordMan]

To my knowledge, **Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address **in a very brief amount of time on the back of an envelope…

[Zsofia]

@WordMan

To my knowledge, **Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address **in a very brief amount of time on the back of an envelope…

Untrue. There’s a draft on White House stationery.

[muldoonthief]

Accorting to this site, General Patton’s speech to the Third Army was extemporaneous. It’s hard to imagine a speechwriter coming up with “We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks.”

[Randy_Seltzer]

ETA: what Zsofia said.

[WordMan]

@Zsofia

Untrue. There’s a draft on White House stationery.

Yep - I went to Wiki and read the same thing - ignorance fought.

[Gangster_Octopus]

@Randy_Seltzer

1968 - Robert F. Kenedy - “Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight” (Probably written hastily in the two-or-so hours before it was delivered. I have no idea how extemporaneous it actually was

This is the first one that came to mind for me.

[The_Second_Stone]

@WordMan

To my knowledge, **Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address **in a very brief amount of time on the back of an envelope…

Most unlikely. The story goes he wrote it on the back of an envelope on the train trip there. He never said any such thing. The copies he wrote out afterwards at the request of people were longer than the back of an envelope, there are several in his hand, one in the Lincoln bedroom. Lincoln usually took his time writing his material with many revisions, and this was his best speech, it probably took him quite some time. He had quite a bit of time between the invitation and the speech to work on it.

I read a book last year on the Gettysburg Address and can’t remember the title. It was quite interesting.

[Cicero]

In “History’s Greatest Hits” the author puts aside the myth of the envelope at Gettysberg. In part is states “Lincoln was a a careful organiser who understood the power of words better than almost any U.S. president before or since. It seems highly improbable that he would have left such an important task to the last moment…”

"At least five known copies of the address exist, in Lincoln’s hand, each with minor differences.

The last copy was aritten by Lincoln personally, to be lithographed for sale and distribution in 1864, to benefit a charity."

[Buran]

General Tim Collins ‘Eve of battle’ speech was apparently extemporised:

Tim Collins (British Army officer)

A friend of mine (ex-British Army) said he was there when the speech was given, he said it was hair-raising.

[astro]

Not a “great speech” from social justice or moral enlightenment perspective, but the “Cornerstone Speech”,given extemporaneously, was one of the most effective and powerful speeches even given in rallying people to the cause and justification for secession in the Civil War.

See the wiki on this speech