Greatest speeches!

[Pious Agnost]

Wary about this thread, I'm sure someone would've thought of it before, but oh well.

What is your favourite speech of all time?

I can't pick my favourite out of Winston Churchills. So I'll probably have to go with JFK's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' or FDR's 'Arsenal of Democracy'

This is an opinion-based thread, so let's try to keep the arguing to a minimum

[Copperknickers II]

"I have a Dream" and Churchill's battle of Britain are the most famous.

[Carl von Döbeln]

Translated by Wilpuri from swedish to english

Carl von Döbelns speech to the Finnish troops, 8th October 1809.

I have gathered the army, to announce, that a preliminary peace agreement has been reached between the Swedish and Russian powers. - These tidings of peace will end all the miseries of a raging war - These should be happy tidings in view of Sweden's exhausted resources, as it ends a conflict, that began as a political mistake, and that has for the second year running required all her strength.

But Finland will be separated from Sweden. - The new state border runs along Torneå river. - Finns! With this peace, a third of the lands of the Swedish crowns are lost. - Sweden loses the proud Finnish Nation, its strongest support - and even this is not enough, for the Swedish army loses its core and the most significant element of its military; - The Motherland is crushed, drowned in sorrow and longing for its unrecoverable sacrifices, but the Wise Allmighty has decided our Destiny, we must accept it with patience - with humility.

- Soldiers! Comrades! Brothers! You, who under the war, with so much loyalty and manliness, despite the superior numbers of the enemy armies, with the strength of arms, at Siikajoki, Revolax, Pulkkila, Lappo, Kauhajoki, Alavo Lappfjerd, Etzeri, Nummijärvi, Juthas and Idensalmi and elsewhere defeated your enemies.

- You, who with your own hands re-took half of Finland, - You, who were finally outnumbered and forced to leave the Finnish border, and have since then with bravery fought for the Swedish soil of the Motherland.

- Aye, you who are present! Are precious survivors of the Proud Finnish Nation and their brave warriors, it is to You that I should and shall, with a moved heart, present you with the King's, - the Realm's, - The Swedish folk's, - The Swedish Army's, - my Brothers in arms, - my own, everyone's, sincere Gratitude.

The King's Gracious Well-wishes, - The Realm's empathy, - The admiration of the Swedish folk, - The friendly respect of the Swedish Army, - The sympathy of my Brothers in arms, - My own devotion towards you, is the sacrifice that consecrates you, and that is brought forth by me!

Finns! Brothers! Your deeds are great, and the gratitude we and all others bestow upon you is equally great. -To express this requires all the skill of a great speaker. But I'm a Soldier. - A Soldier! What a proud title! This title I have, from you - for you - and with you! Receive then the earnest thoughts of a moved heart, and you Swedish Troops, who are present at this honourable and sorrowful event; be living witnesses to the Swedish Motherland's sincere gratitude. - Swedes! Be proud to have seen these Finnish Survivors! Remember them! Honour them! See their weary bodies, their pale faces, they carry the hardships of the past years! And you Finns! When you return to your homelands, deliver the message of gratitude of the Swedish Folk to your Nation! Know this, you may return with torn clothes, amputated or bullet-pierced limbs, but also the visible beauty of the Soul of a Warrior.

Enemies to the Swedish Motherland could you never become - of that I am convinced - but remain it's Friends for all time! Should the new Ruler oppose the living out of your hopes and will, then with the silent speech of Heart and Mind, send your blessings to the Motherland! Remind your children of it; teach every family, bless you, honour you.

- One thing I ask of you! When you return to the lands where we defeated our Enemies, and you see the wretched sand mounds that cover our fallen comrades, give them a silent sigh of Blessing, for they died as heroes and their ashes are cared for by the spirits of Honour.

- I know the human hearts' many quirks, its eagerness to hastily choose an object, which it thinks it will never lose, but barely have a few weeks passed, before instability has made another Choice, time changes everything - with it, everything is forgotten; but one thing I can assure you, and you will see it for yourselves, that the bonds formed between soldiers, bound in battle, danger, blood and death, can never be undone; Thus we are and I am convinced of each others love; the Brotherhood of us soldiers will last us our lifetimes, and the gratitude I've expressed for you, and am now expressing to you, has made our bond an insoluble union.

- Finns! Brothers! If only my words could be accompanied by tears of blood from my eyes, they would flow, and each drop would assure you of my devotion, my friendship!

G. v. Döbeln.

General commander of the northern royal army.

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Probably Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech". Defines our era until the crumble of the Soviet Union.

[UnitedIreland]

Probably Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech". Defines our era until the crumble of the Soviet Union.

Even though Churchill is credited with inventing the Iron Curtain phrase, he wasn't the first person to say it. In actual fact, Goebbels used it in an Article called 'Das Jahr 2000', which means 'What will the world look like in the year 2000'. he stated that 'an iron curtain will fall across Europe' and that behind it 'nations will be slaughtered'. This article was printed in Das Reich, his favourite propaganda vechicle in Feburary 1945, over a year before Churchill's Iron Curtain speech.

[koultouras]

i Don't know if it actually is a true speech (or a fictional one for the purposes of the movie)
"Fight and you may die. Run and you
will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now,
would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for
one chance, just one cahnce, to come back here as young men and tell
our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take
our freedom!" (W.Wallace at Falkirik)

[6th Vigil]

mate if its from Braveheart i can safely tell you that it is pure fiction. Surely you know that?

[Pious Agnost]

WHERE IS THE BRIDGE?!?!?!

[koultouras]

Well ... it would be a nice one though...if true... Apparently not... isn't there any Scotish to confirm that ... (i do not know actually) ive heard it is a true one...

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Well ... it would be a nice one though...if true... Apparently not... isn't there any Scotish to confirm that ... (i do not know actually) ive heard it is a true one...

It's not historical. The best you'll find is this "speech", which isn't really his but was written in 1706:

AT the Battle of Falkirk, Robert Bruce (afterwards K. Robert Ist..)Son to
Robert Bruce. Lord of Mannia &c: being then under English Influence,
Created E. of Huntingtoun, and Captain of the English Forces at the
Battle of Falkirk, took occasion to upbraid William Wallace the Scottish
Chittain ; a lledging,that he affected the Soveraignity. To which Willam Wallace.
made the following Reply. " I never proposed to my self, that, as the end of
" my Travel and Labour, which neither my Circumstances or my Fortune can
" admitt; nor doth my mind desire: But when I see my Fellow Subjects Desti-
" tute of Leaders by your Cowardice, and Disposed to a most cruel Enemy, not
" for Slavery, but for Butcherie and Destruction; I took pity upon their case,
" and have undertaken their Cause, forsaken by you ; and I will as soon leave
" my Life, as forsake their Liberties, Fortunes and Safety. You, to whom
" nasty Slavery with Security, is preferrabe to honest Liberty with hazard, Em-
" brace that Fortune,which you so greatly Esteem : I shall freely and willing-
" ly Die, tho I had a Thousand Lives, in the Defence of my Country, Nor
" shall the Love to my Country leave me, before my Life forsake me. Buchan-
" an Edit. Mosm. p. 200.

[koultouras]

Sad ... then i would probably vote for a surely true one....
" Pericles Epitaph "(Pericles' Funeral Oration) that was given for the fallen Athenians after the first year of Peloponnesian War

Just a tiny part of the speech which was recorded[or composed acording to some] b Thucydides:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

.....So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!...

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb;= "'Aνδρων 'επιφανων πασα γή τάφος"

[4th Regiment]

October 7, 1915, Major Dragutin Gavrilović, last defense of Belgrade against the Austro-Hungarian and German attack during the First World War , to soldiers of his regiment (bold ones are two greatest sentences in military history speaches) :


"Exactly at three o'clock, the enemy is due to be crushed by your fierce charge, destroyed by your grenades and bayonets. The honor of Belgrade, our capital, must not be stained. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the honor of Belgrade and the Fatherland. Therefore, you no longer need worry about your lives, they no longer exist! So, forward to glory! For King and Fatherland! Long live the king! Long live Belgrade!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragutin_Gavrilović

[il padrino]

October 7, 1915, Major Dragutin Gavrilović, last defense of Belgrade against the Austro-Hungarian and German attack during the First World War , to soldiers of his regiment (bold ones are two greatest sentences in military history speaches) :


"Exactly at three o'clock, the enemy is due to be crushed by your fierce charge, destroyed by your grenades and bayonets. The honor of Belgrade, our capital, must not be stained. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the honor of Belgrade and the Fatherland. Therefore, you no longer need worry about your lives, they no longer exist! So, forward to glory! For King and Fatherland! Long live the king! Long live Belgrade!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragutin_Gavrilović

i wanted to post the same thing

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

General George S Patton, Jr.
May 31, 1944, England

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans, love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers ...

Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in Hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Now, an army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The biggest bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post, don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating. Now we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. You know ...

My God, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against. My God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. Now some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friends face, you'll know what to do. Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything, we'll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time, and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose. Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, What did you do in the great World War Two? You won't have to say, Well, I shoveled in Louisiana. Alright now, you sons of es, you know how I feel. I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere. That's all.

[ivan_the_terrible]

W. Bush is pretty hard to beat:




Recruiterments

[Pious Agnost]

W. Bush is pretty hard to beat:




Recruiterments

It's a real shame he became a President and not a comedian.

[ivan_the_terrible]

It's a real shame he became a President and not a comedian.

Larger audience that way.

[Pious Agnost]

That and fewer people get bombed.

But then again, you've got to factor out laughing at the people who voted him in (Twice)

[Platon]

You are all individuals!

[webMaster412160]

The speeche Adoma says before jumbing with Battlestar Galactic to the cylon baseship. "Yes we can ..."