Hate speech.
“The Germans?!?”
“Forget it, he’s on a roll.”
I have two.
Man in the Arena, Teddy Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan
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.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot , 1994
Not the greatest speech, but one of the more memorable I’ve heard - Sen. Abe Ribicoff, ditching his prepared text in order to castigate Chicago authorities over their handling of street violence during the 1968 Democratic convention. Mayor Daley was not happy.
That Sagan quite is incredible. I hadn’t seen it. Thanks for that.
St. Crispin’s day from Henry V
I see this was mentioned above already. I do think this provided inspirations for Churchill’s Finest Hour and We Shall Fight on the Beaches.
I am fond of Robert Heinlein’s “The Pragmatics of Patriotism”.
Text here
Abridged version, in an easier-to-read format, here.
As God is My Witness, I thought Turkeys could fly
Stella Young. I keep coming back to this every so often to remind myself to treat others as human beings, not people with labels.
Branagh is good with those. Here he is recreating Col Tim Collins’s pre-battle speech given to 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish prior to the invasion of Iraq.
An entirely different tone and feel to to the speech as Collins projects confidence in the men, while acknowledging the dignity of the Iraqis and recognizing it will be a deadly undertaking.
“If there are casualties of war, remember, that when they got up this morning and got dressed, they did not plan to die this day. So leave them dignity in death, bury them with due reverence, and properly mark their graves.”
“Our business now is north. Good luck.”
“Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet…”
I recognized the quote but couldn’t remember where it was from. Dr. Evil from Austin Power.
Huh. I’m a bit surprised that “I Have a Dream” hasn’t shown up in this list yet. Did I miss it? Anyway, here it is, deserving every bit of its reputation. I suspect but can’t prove that it’s the most famous speech in English, that more folks on Earth would recognize it from its title or from its most famous segments than any other speech in English.
Caratacus is an interesting orator. In I, Claudius he’s praised for his British phlegm, spitting defiance in the Senate’s eye:
I’ll tell you this: If the sword is all that you’re prepared to show us Britons, then be prepared to carry it forever in your hand, and sleep with it forever at your side at night — for you will need it!
But, according to Tacitus, he kissed Claudius’ ass with amazing acumen with a speech crafted to save his skin:
“If I were now being handed over as one who had surrendered immediately, neither my fortune nor your glory would have achieved brilliance. It is also true that in my case any reprisal will be followed by oblivion. On the other hand, if you preserve me safe and sound, I shall be an eternal example of your clemency.”
In a way I’m glad to see that I am not the first with this one. After thinking about speeches that have impressed me I narrowed it down to that one. I am glad to see I am not the only one.