History's Great Speeches

Demosthenes is generally acknowledged as the greatest orator in history. He overcame a stammer and the theft of his inheritance by his legal guardians to become as foundational to oratory as his contemporaries Plato and Aristotle are to...

History is often concentrated into short bursts of change, with long periods of shifting before and waves of alteration afterwards. Nowhere is this more obvious than the thirty year interregnum between the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution....

Mankind can rule itself without the force of top-down authority, and freedom is more than just choosing how to meet the needs and demands of capital. Inequality is structural and intentional, not inevitable and necessary.It does not have to be this...

No discussion of the 19th Century is complete without Napoleon. We begin with Charles Phillips’ eulogy, summarizing the strangeness and contradiction of the most influential man of his time. Followed by 7 brief speeches by Napoleon himself.Two...

Five speeches from a millennium shaped by faith and empire.632CE. In Muhammed’s farewell address, he lauds his people for their achievements and virtues, and gives them his final instructions for living within the faith.In 1095, Pope Urban II’s...

The late 19th Century was a time of liberation. After the collapse of empires, people of all creeds demanded their equality.We begin with two speeches that represent the old order, by Bismarck. Between the two speeches he went from being Prussia’s...

Six speeches about freedom and revolution from the American, French and Irish revolutions.The first two speeches are from the American Revolutionary war (1775-1783). Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or give me death” is recognized even today, two...

Five speeches from the legendary orators Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Pericles.431 BCE: Pericles’ Funeral Oration is a valedictory and eulogy for the great age of Athenian democracy. Reported by Thucydides, it was given at the first...

Six months ago, I had never heard the name Eugene Debs. Today, I believe he is one of the greatest orators in history, ranking alongside Napoleon, Robespierre, Lincoln, and Cicero. More importantly, he was a genuine hero, a man to believe in and...

Martin Luther and John Calvin are household names, of a type where people have no idea about them other than knowing their importance in Christian thought and culture. It is surprising, therefore, how closely their language and concerns reflect modern...

The birth of liberation movements in the C19th saw a rise in fighting for the rights of workers.William Morris believed decries the belief “not that Commerce was made for man, but that man was made for Commerce”, with the profit motive that renders...