best speeches for rhetorical analysis

My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle School ELA and High School English

Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis.

I absolutely LOVE teaching rhetorical analysis. I think it might be one of my favorite units to teach to my high school students. There are just so many different text options to choose from. Here is a list of some of my favorite speeches to include in my rhetorical analysis teaching unit.

10 Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis

1. the gettysburg address (abraham lincoln).

Some notable things to mention in this speech include allusion and parallel structure. To make your analysis more meaningful, point out these devices to students and explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text.

Teaching Resource : The Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis Activity Packet

2. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech (Lou Gehrig)

This speech is one that many of my athletes love to analyze, and it is an excellent exemplar text to teach pathos. And like The Gettysburg Address, it is short. This is another speech that you can read, analyze, and even write about in one class period.

When I use this speech in my class, I have students look for examples of pathos. Mainly, I have them look at word choice, tone, and mood. How does Lou Gehrig’s choice of words affect his tone and the overall mood of the speech?

3. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King,  Jr.)

In the classroom, it is important to point out the sermonic feel to the speech and also to have your students look for calls to action and pathos. Have your students look for tone, allusions, and word choice to help them notice these rhetoric expressions throughout it.

Teaching Resource : I Have a Dream Close Read and Rhetorical Analysis

4. Speech at the March on Washington (Josephine Baker)

This is another important speech that held a lot of importance for the changes that needed to be made in America. The speech is a shorter one, so in the classroom, it will not take as long to analyze it, and students can understand the significance of the use of rhetoric in a shorter amount of time than some other speeches.

When teaching this speech, I like to remind my students to search for devices that portray an excellent example of the pathos that is so present in this speech. Some of these devices could be mood, repetition, and diction.

5. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech (Steve Jobs)

In class, it is good to have your students annotate and analyze the speech just as they have done for the others. The organization of the speech will help them to notice the similarities and differences between each point Jobs makes.

6. Space Shuttle Challenger (Ronald Reagan)

This speech represents a strong sense of pathos as a movement to help the American people cope with loss after the deaths of the astronauts aboard the Challenger. It is another speech that is not too long, so it should not take a long time to both analyze and annotate the entire speech.

When teaching this speech in class, be sure to mention how pathos is the driving force behind the speech, through the tone and the diction. How does Reagan use emotion to focus on the astronauts as humans, rather than solely focusing on the tragedy?

7. The Perils of Indifference (Elie Wiesel)

This speech is a good one to teach because it both makes students question their own lives, but also how the world works. The speech relies on pathos, and a little ethos too, to get the audience to feel the full effect of the tragedy of the Holocaust and what the speaker went through. It is a long speech so it may take longer for the students to fully grasp all the details that make it such a persuasive speech.

When I teach this speech, I like to have students annotate every place they notice an example of pathos, and then have them explain why in their annotations this makes them feel an emotion. The same with the ethos, and then we can further analyze the rest together.

8. 9/11 Address to the Nation (George W. Bush)

This speech shows another example of the use of pathos in the midst of a tragedy. The President wanted to show the American people how much he was feeling for those lost in the tragedy of 9/11. It is not a long speech, but the amount of emotion within the words is significant for students to notice.

When teaching this speech, it is essential that students look very closely at each part of it, noticing each piece that reveals tone, mood, and other literary devices. How do the different devices add to the pathos of the speech?

FREE TEACHING ACTIVITY : September 11 Address to the Nation Sampler

Teaching Resource : September 11 Address to the Nation Rhetorical Analysis Unit

9. We are Virginia Tech (Nikki Giovanni)

This speech is probably the shortest speech on this list but provides one of the most emotional and pathos-filled rhetoric. This describes another tragedy that is spoken about with pathos to give the audience a safe feeling after such an emotional thing. Students can spend time analyzing the different devices that make the piece so strong in its emotion.

In the classroom, make sure your students make a note of the repetition, and what that does for the speech. Does it make the emotion more impactful? How does it make the audience feel like they are a part of something bigger?

10. Woman’s Right to the Suffrage (Susan B. Anthony)

This is another short speech that holds a lot of power within it. A lot of students will enjoy reading this to see how much the country has changed, and how this speech may have some part in influencing this change. It is a great speech to help teach logos in the classroom, and it will not take a long time to analyze.

Make sure your students notice, and they also understand, the use of allusions within the speech. These allusions help to establish the use of logos, as Anthony wants the use of American historical documents to show how logical her argument is.

Ready-For-You Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Unit

You might also be interested in my blog post about 15 rhetorical analysis questions to ask your students.

Teaching rhetorical analysis and speeches in the classroom is a great way to teach informational text reading standards.

Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Resources:

These resources follow reading standards for informational text and are ideal for secondary ELA teachers.

• Rhetorical Analysis Unit with Sticky Notes
• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Understanding Rhetorical Appeals\
• Rhetorical Analysis Mini Flip Book

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70 Rhetorical Analysis Essay Topics for Secondary ELA

May 28, 2019 //  by  Lindsay Ann //   8 Comments

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Before we get to the rhetorical analysis essay prompts (a.k.a. tons of ready-to-analyze texts at your fingertips), let’s take a time-out to lay the groundwork for understanding a rhetorical analysis essay using ethos, pathos, and logos.

Rhetoric is Defined As…

Put simply, rhetoric refers to any technique an author uses to persuade an audience.

Or, the behind-the-scenes choices an author makes to give you all the feels. 

Chances are, if you consider a text or speech to be  really good , rhetorical techniques are working like a master puppeteer to pull at your heart strings, make an impact on your brain, and get you to let down your guard because you trust the author or speaker.

That’s why political figures have speech writers.

That’s why authors spend time fine-tuning their words and sentences.

Rhetoric is important.

In addition, rhetoric goes back to the ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle, the “father” of rhetoric.

The Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Moving on, if rhetoric is the art of persuasion, then the rhetorical analysis essay analyzes how an author or speaker creates opportunity for persuasion in his/her text.

Writing a rhetorical analysis essay involves understanding of context and occasion for writing. It also involves understanding the subject matter of the speech and intended audience.

Beyond this, noticing how the author uses rhetorical appeals and rhetorical devices to impact the target audience can help you to write an in-depth rhetorical essay analysis.

The BEST Rhetoric Topics

As a teacher, I’m always in search of engaging texts for students to analyze. In this post, I’m sharing the best speeches, advertisements, and essays  for rhetorical analysis. You’ll never run out of rhetorical analysis essay topics again!

So, you’ll definitely want to stop right now and pin this post. 

Your future English-teacher-self will thank you. 

47 Rhetoric Examples in Speeches

The following speeches work well individually, but I’ve also tried to add value by pairing texts together.

Whether you’re analyzing rhetorical appeals such as ethos, pathos, and logos or looking at rhetorical devices, these speeches will work for discussion or as the text for a rhetorical analysis essay.

• Gettysburg Monologue in Remember the Titans  – Pair with “ The Gettysburg Address ” by Abraham Lincoln
• “ Full Power of Women ” by Priyanka Chopra – Pair with Emma Watson’s speech on the Power of Women
• Speech from Finding Forrester – Pair with “ Integrity ” by Warren Buffet
• Red’s Parole Hearing from Shawshank Redemption – Pair with the Freedom Speech from Braveheart
• Ending Scene from The Breakfast Club – Pair with  “ The Danger of a Single Story ” by Chimamanda Ngozi Achichi
• Authentic Swing Speech from The Legend of Bagger Vance – Pair with  “ How Winning is Done ” from  Rocky Balboa
• Maximus’ Speech to Commodus from Gladiator – Pair with  The Revolutionary Speech  from  V for Vendetta
• The Natural State of Mankind from Amistad – Pair with “ Our Diversity Makes Us Who We Are ” by Michelle Obama
• Denzel Washington’s  Dillard University Commencement Speech – Pair with “ The Last Lecture ” by Randy Pausch
• “ Like Pieces of Glass in my Head ” from The Green Mile – Pair with “ Eulogy for Beau Biden ” by Barack Obama
• Oprah’s  2018 Golden Globes speech – Pair with  Seth Myers’ Golden Globes Monologue  and/or  Ellen says #MeToo
• Independence Day speech – Pair with  Aragorn’s Helm’s Deep Speech  from LOTR: The Two Towers
• Pair  “I am Human”  &  “Love Liberates” , both by Maya Angelou
• Pink’s  VMA acceptance speech – Pair with “ If I Should Have a Daughter ” by Sarah Kay
• Ellen’s  People’s Choice Humanitarian Award Acceptance Speech – Pair with “ Pep Talk ” by Kid President
• Gandalf Speaks to Frodo in Moria  from  LOTR : Fellowship of the Ring – Pair with   Sam’s Speech   in LOTR: The Two Towers
• Obama’s  Final Farewell Speech – Pair with Al Pacino’s  Any Given Sunday  speech – clean version
• Harvard Graduation Speech by Donovan Livingston – Pair with Steve Jobs  2005 Stanford Commencement Speech
• “ Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator ” by Tim Urban – Pair with “ Five Second Rule ” by Mel Robbins
• Rachel Hollis “Inspire Women to be Their Best” (mild profanity)
• My Philosophy for a Happy Life by Sam Berns
• “ To this Day: For the Bullied and the Beautiful ” by Shane Koyczan – Pair with Kid President’s “ Pep Talk to Teachers and Students “
• “ The Power of Introverts ” by Susan Cain – Pair with “ Don’t Let Others Stop You From Living Your Own Truth “

Rhetoric in Advertising: 23 Examples

This next list holds a blend of print advertisements and commercials, perfect for introducing close reading and rhetorical analysis and for writing a rhetorical analysis essay.

Ads are short, but pack a punch. Honestly, my students love analyzing the rhetoric of advertisements a lot because they are accessible and visual.

Rhetoric Commercials & Print Advertisements

• “ Web of Fries “
• Duracell “ Teddy Bear ” Commercial
• Apple 1984 Commercial Introducing the New Macintosh Computer
• Nike “ Find Your Greatness ” Ads
• Pepsi, Superbowl 53 Commercial: “ More than Okay ”
• “ Get a Mac ” Commercial Compilation
• “ Can You Hear Me Now ” Verizon Wireless
• Apple iPhone X – “ Unlock ”
• Kiwi “ First Steps ” Print Advertisement
• Vauxhall’s  Backwards Cinderella
• Lego Print Advertisement
• Top 10 Powerful Ads of 2014

Rhetoric of the Image

• Entourage NGO for the Homeless Print Advertisement Images
• 33 Creative Print Ads
• Protege Group
• Greenpeace Print Advertisement Collection
• “ Divorce Furniture “
• L’Oréal Paris: “This Ad Is For Men, 1 ” L’Oréal Paris: “This Ad Is For Men, 2 ” L’Oréal Paris: “This Ad Is For Men, 3 ”
• “ It’s Not Acceptable to Treat a Woman Like One”
• “ 50 Creative and Effective Advertising Examples “
• Juvenile Protective Association
• Anti-Bullying Campaign
• 25 Serious Ads

Writing a Rhetorical Analysis Essay Using Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

No doubt, writing a rhetorical analysis essay is like taking apart a puzzle and putting it back together again. Teachers, help your students to understand how all of the pieces fit together in order to see the bigger picture of what the author is trying to accomplish.

First, take time to understand how a text “works” for a rhetorical analysis essay using ethos, pathos, and logos:

• Read or listen to understand overall content. Look up unfamiliar words.
• Mark the text for the author’s main points and sub-points.
• descriptive
• compare/contrast
• cause/effect
• argumentative
• Take notes on SOAPS: subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker
• Discuss the text(s) in Socratic Seminar .

Next, identify rhetorical appeals . 

• Ethos: How an author demonstrates credibility and builds trust.
• Pathos: How an author creates an emotional response.
• Logos: How an author demonstrates expertise and knowledge.

Look for rhetorical devices & patterns in the text.

• Rhetorical devices refer to an author’s use of diction and syntax.
• Does the author repeat key words / phrases? What’s the impact?
• Does the author return to the same idea or image? Why?

Finally, write a clear thesis statement & topic sentences for your rhetorical analysis essay.

• Use your thesis statement to generate topic sentences.
• In your body paragraphs, identify a technique, provide an example, and discuss the “right there” and “beneath the surface” meanings. How does the author’s choice impact the audience, further a message, establish a tone?
• What’s the context for the repetition?
• What connotations are important?
• How is the anaphora used to move the reader to greater understanding (logos), emotional investment (pathos), and/or trust in the author’s ideas (ethos)?

Six Strategies for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis

I’ve created an awesome free guide to inspire English teachers who teach rhetoric and the rhetorical analysis essay in their classrooms. Even if you don’t teach AP lang, you can benefit from these strategies !

Rhetorical Analysis Essay FAQ’s

How do you write a rhetorical analysis essay.

Writing a rhetorical analysis essay is like writing a literary analysis essay, except the focus is on one or more non-fiction texts and the analysis targets an author’s style or rhetorical “moves” (a.k.a. use of rhetorical appeals and/or devices). Rhetorical analysis essays usually prove a claim about the author’s message or purpose for writing. The paragraphs in a rhetorical analysis essay unpack “what” an author is doing to send this message and “how” these choices impact the audience.

What does it mean to write a rhetorical analysis?

Writing a rhetorical analysis means that you are aware, as an audience member, reader, listener, human being, of the messages you consume. As a critical consumer of others’ ideas, you ask hard questions about how these messages are shaped, why they’re being delivered in certain ways, and why this is important for you and for society.

What are the three rhetorical strategies?

The three most commonly known rhetorical strategies are known as rhetorical appeals. Ethos (ethics) refers to credibility and trustworthiness. Pathos (passion) refers to engaging an audience’s emotions. Logos (logic) refers to engaging an audience’s brain through logical organization and use of evidence and arguments.

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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Reader Interactions

January 9, 2023 at 9:38 am

Hi Lindsay Ann, thanks so much for these great resources. Just wanted to gently point out a couple errors that you might want to fix:

#12: should be Seth Myers’ (not Seth Myer’s) #13: should be independence (not independance)

Teachers have to help each other out 🙂

Best, Nikkee

January 9, 2023 at 5:44 pm

Thank you so much for letting me know, Nikkee!

[…] a lot of options and extensions for analyzing rhetoric in social media. Who knows, maybe your next rhetorical analysis essay assignment will be focused on rhetoric in social […]

[…] 70 Rhetorical Analysis Essay Topics for Secondary ELA […]

[…] find that teaching rhetorical analysis and close reading skills go hand-in-hand with teaching voice in […]

[…] helps students to remember that everything comes back to the author’s purpose or message in rhetorical analysis. Author’s purpose is central to unpacking an author’s choices, including use of […]

[…] you assigning a rhetorical analysis essay? Why not try having students use rhetorical analysis sentence […]

[…] I introduced students to rhetoric. First, we journaled on this topic: Think of a time someone talked you into doing something or believing something. How did they do it? What tactics did they use? Students may share out journals. I gave students a graphic organizer with a PAPA analysis (purpose, audience, persona, argument) and picked a speech. Frankly, the speech I picked, which was Samwise Gamgee’s speech to Frodo Baggins in The Two Towers, failed spectacularly since students had no frame of reference. Note: that movie is old now. I know. It makes me sad, too. So go cautiously if you use this, but maybe pick something else. You can find a massive list here. […]

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7 Powerful Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis in ELA

• Reading Instruction

Our state assessment always features a famous speech, so it’s essential to prepare students for rhetorical analysis. Beyond the state assessment, rhetorical analysis helps students understand the constant barrage of persuasive media they encounter each day. With the right skills, students can assess sponsored content, commercials, and advertisements with a critical and wary eye.

For this reason, I’ve put together a list of favorite speeches for teaching rhetorical analysis!

This post this post may contain affiliate links .  Please read the  Terms of Use .

Getting Started with Rhetorical Analysis

Before I take students too far into rhetorical analysis, I like to brush up on rhetorical appeals with this quick card sort .

Then, before we dig into a complex text, we practice identify rhetoric in a less stressful piece. To take some of the stress out of rhetorical analysis, I will often start with a video.

• First, “ The Danger of a Single Story ” is my favorite TedTalk ever! I even wrote an entire blog post about it, so there is no better place to start with rhetorical analysis!
• “ Why city flags may be the worst thing you’ve never noticed ” is a less obvious choice. However, this is a fun TedTalk that appeals to a variety of learners. Plus, I’ve designed some creative extension activities so students can practice a variety of skills.
• I also love Antony’s funeral speech from Julius Caesar . Reading this text and listening to an actor’s performance is a great way to consider tone in conjunction with rhetoric. Grab my free resource for Antony’s funeral speech !
• Finally, “ Credo ” by Neil Gaiman is such a powerful essay! Written in response to a terrorist attack, this text is shorter than the others but packs an incredible punch. Watch Gaiman perform the piece here .

Leveling Up with Rhetorical Analysis

As students become more comfortable with rhetorical analysis, we move into more complex texts. However, by this point, students are comfortable with these 4 steps to pre-read any nonfiction text . With these strategies, students have the tools to tackle any text.

• First, JFK’s Inaugural Address is a classic speech. Oftentimes students are familiar with his challenge to listeners, so this is a good opening. Plus, this speech is short enough that students can work through it in one or two class periods. Students can listen to it here .
• Similarly, students are usually familiar with Patrick Henry’s call to “give me liberty or give me death,” so his Speech to the Virginia Convention is a fitting text for rhetorical analysis. In particular, this is a great text for teaching restatement.
• Finally, students have often heard of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense , so The Crisis is a good complement to Henry’s work. As a bonus, this is a good piece for analyzing aphorism as a rhetorical tool.

More Complex Texts for Rhetorical Analysis

As our study of rhetorical analysis progresses, students become ready for more challenging texts. To help students attack these texts, we may use these rhetoric task cards or this editable SOAPSTone graphic organizer .

• To my mind, “ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Go d” is a classic speech for rhetorical analysis. No two students ever have the same reaction to this text, so it’s always a memorable lesson!
• Additionally, FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech is a complex piece for rhetorical analysis. One of the challenges of this speech is its historical context. Its length is also another factor. Nevertheless, it’s a speech that continues to resonate with students.

Bonus Recommendations

While these two recommendations are not technically speeches, they still make for great rhetorical analysis.

• First, “ Privileged ” by Kyle Korver engages students because they love basketball. They don’t expect the speech to lend itself to such powerful rhetorical analysis!
• Second, “ Words and Behavior ” by Aldous Huxley is an incredibly dense essay. However, Huxley manages to criticize the use of rhetoric while also using rhetoric. By this token, this text pairs nicely with every other text on this list.

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A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I Have a Dream’ is one of the greatest speeches in American history. Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) in Washington D.C. in 1963, the speech is a powerful rallying cry for racial equality and for a fairer and equal world in which African Americans will be as free as white Americans.

If you’ve ever stayed up till the small hours working on a presentation you’re due to give the next day, tearing your hair out as you try to find the right words, you can take solace in the fact that as great an orator as Martin Luther King did the same with one of the most memorable speeches ever delivered.

He reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give his ‘I Have a Dream’, writing it out in longhand. You can read the speech in full here .

‘I Have a Dream’: background

The occasion for King’s speech was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 African American men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial.

They were marching for several reasons, including jobs (many of them were out of work), but the main reason was freedom: King and many other Civil Rights leaders sought to remove segregation of black and white Americans and to ensure black Americans were treated the same as white Americans.

1963 was the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation , in which then US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had freed the African slaves in the United States in 1863. But a century on from the abolition of slavery, King points out, black Americans still are not free in many respects.

‘I Have a Dream’: summary

King begins his speech by reminding his audience that it’s a century, or ‘five score years’, since that ‘great American’ Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This ensured the freedom of the African slaves, but Black Americans are still not free, King points out, because of racial segregation and discrimination.

America is a wealthy country, and yet many Black Americans live in poverty. It is as if the Black American is an exile in his own land. King likens the gathering in Washington to cashing a cheque: in other words, claiming money that is due to be paid.

Next, King praises the ‘magnificent words’ of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence . King compares these documents to a promissory note, because they contain the promise that all men, including Black men, will be guaranteed what the Declaration of Independence calls ‘inalienable rights’: namely, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

King asserts that America in the 1960s has ‘defaulted’ on this promissory note: in other words, it has refused to pay up. King calls it a ‘sacred obligation’, but America as a nation is like someone who has written someone else a cheque that has bounced and the money owed remains to be paid. But it is not because the money isn’t there: America, being a land of opportunity, has enough ‘funds’ to ensure everyone is prosperous enough.

King urges America to rise out of the ‘valley’ of segregation to the ‘sunlit path of racial justice’. He uses the word ‘brotherhood’ to refer to all Americans, since all men and women are God’s children. He also repeatedly emphasises the urgency of the moment. This is not some brief moment of anger but a necessary new start for America. However, King cautions his audience not to give way to bitterness and hatred, but to fight for justice in the right manner, with dignity and discipline.

Physical violence and militancy are to be avoided. King recognises that many white Americans who are also poor and marginalised feel a kinship with the Civil Rights movement, so all Americans should join together in the cause. Police brutality against Black Americans must be eradicated, as must racial discrimination in hotels and restaurants. States which forbid Black Americans from voting must change their laws.

Martin Luther King then comes to the most famous part of his speech, in which he uses the phrase ‘I have a dream’ to begin successive sentences (a rhetorical device known as anaphora ). King outlines the form that his dream, or ambition or wish for a better America, takes.

His dream, he tells his audience, is ‘deeply rooted’ in the American Dream: that notion that anybody, regardless of their background, can become prosperous and successful in the United States. King once again reminds his listeners of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

In his dream of a better future, King sees the descendants of former Black slaves and the descendants of former slave owners united, sitting and eating together. He has a dream that one day his children will live in a country where they are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

Even in Mississippi and Alabama, states which are riven by racial injustice and hatred, people of all races will live together in harmony. King then broadens his dream out into ‘our hope’: a collective aspiration and endeavour. King then quotes the patriotic American song ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee ’, which describes America as a ‘sweet land of liberty’.

King uses anaphora again, repeating the phrase ‘let freedom ring’ several times in succession to suggest how jubilant America will be on the day that such freedoms are ensured. And when this happens, Americans will be able to join together and be closer to the day when they can sing a traditional African-American hymn : ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.’

‘I Have a Dream’: analysis

Although Martin Luther King’s speech has become known by the repeated four-word phrase ‘I Have a Dream’, which emphasises the personal nature of his vision, his speech is actually about a collective dream for a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

Nevertheless, in working from ‘I have a dream’ to a different four-word phrase, ‘this is our hope’. The shift is natural and yet it is a rhetorical masterstroke, since the vision of a better nation which King has set out as a very personal, sincere dream is thus telescoped into a universal and collective struggle for freedom.

What’s more, in moving from ‘dream’ to a different noun, ‘hope’, King suggests that what might be dismissed as an idealistic ambition is actually something that is both possible and achievable. No sooner has the dream gathered momentum than it becomes a more concrete ‘hope’.

In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, King was doing more than alluding to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years earlier. The opening words to his speech, ‘Five score years ago’, allude to a specific speech Lincoln himself had made a century before: the Gettysburg Address .

In that speech, delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November 1863, Lincoln had urged his listeners to continue in the fight for freedom, envisioning the day when all Americans – including Black slaves – would be free. His speech famously begins with the words: ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’

‘Four score and seven years’ is eighty-seven years, which takes us back from 1863 to 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, Martin Luther King’s allusion to the words of Lincoln’s historic speech do two things: they call back to Lincoln’s speech but also, by extension, to the founding of the United States almost two centuries before. Although Lincoln and the American Civil War represented progress in the cause to make all Americans free regardless of their ethnicity, King makes it clear in ‘I Have a Dream’ that there is still some way to go.

In the last analysis, King’s speech is a rhetorically clever and emotionally powerful call to use non-violent protest to oppose racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination, but also to ensure that all Americans are lifted out of poverty and degradation.

But most of all, King emphasises the collective endeavour that is necessary to bring about the world he wants his children to live in: the togetherness, the linking of hands, which is essential to make the dream a reality.

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Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Traditionally, teachers have encouraged students to engage with and interpret literature—novels, poems, short stories, and plays. Too often, however, the spoken word is left unanalyzed, even though the spoken word has the potential to alter our space just as much than the written. After gaining skill through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a list compiled from several resources and write an essay that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as What makes the speech an argument?, How did the author's rhetoric evoke a response from the audience?, and Why are the words still venerated today?

Featured Resources

From theory to practice.

Nearly everything we read and hear is an argument. Speeches are special kinds of arguments and should be analyzed as such. Listeners should keep in mind the context of the situation involving the delivery and the audience-but a keen observer should also pay close attention to the elements of argument within the text. This assignment requires students to look for those elements.

"Since rhetoric is the art of effective communication, its principles can be applied to many facets of everyday life" (Lamb 109). It's through this lesson that students are allowed to see how politicians and leaders manipulate and influence their audiences using specific rhetorical devices in a manner that's so effective that the speeches are revered even today. It's important that we keep showing our students how powerful language can be when it's carefully crafted and arranged.

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

Materials and Technology

• ReadWriteThink Notetaker
• Teacher Background and Information Sheet
• Student Assignment Sheet
• List of Speeches for Students
• Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech with Related Questions
• Historical Speech Research Questions
• Peer Response Handout
• Essay Rubric

This website contains audio of the Top 100 speeches of all time.

Included on this site is audio of famous speeches of the 20th century, as well as information about the speeches and background information on the writers.

The "Great Speeches Collection" from The History Place are available here in print and in audio.

This website includes information on finding and documenting sources in the MLA format.

Preparation

• Review the background and information sheet for teachers to familiarize yourself with the assignment and expectations.  Consider your students' background with necessary rhetorical terms such as claims, warrants, the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos), and fallacies; and rhetorical devices such as tone, diction, figurative language, repetition, hyperbole, and understatement. The lesson provides some guidance for direct instruction on these terms, but there are multiple opportunities for building or activating student knowledge through modeling on the two speeches done as a class.
• Check the links to the online resources (in Websites section) make sure that they are still working prior to giving out this assignment.
• Decide whether you want to allow more than one student to analyze and write about the same speech in each class.
• Look over the  List of Speeches for Students to decide if there are any that you would like to add.
• Look over the suggested Essay Rubric and determine the weights you would like to assign to each category.  For example, you might tell students that Support and Research may be worth three times the value of Style. Customize the Essay Rubric to meet the learning goals for your students.
• Reserve the library for Session Three so the students can do research on their speeches.
• President Obama’s Inauguration Speech.
• Former President Bush’s Defends War in Iraq Speech.
• Former President Bush’s 9/11 Speech.
• Former President Clinton’s “I Have Sinned” Speech.

Student Objectives

Students will

• analyze a speech for rhetorical devices and their purpose.
• identify an author’s purposeful manipulation of language.
• identify elements of argument within a speech.
• write an analysis of a speech with in-text documentation.

Session One

• Begin the lesson by asking students what needs to be present in order for a speech to occur. Though the question may seem puzzling—too hard, or too simple—at first, students will eventually identify, as Aristotle did, the need for a speaker, a message, and an audience.
• The class should discuss audience and the importance of identifying the audience for speeches, since they occur in particular moments in time and are delivered to specific audiences. This is a good time to discuss the Rhetorical Triangle (Aristotelian Triad) or discuss a chapter on audience from an argumentative textbook. You may wish to share information from the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Persuasive Techniques in Advertising and  The Rhetorical Triangle from The University of Oklahoma.
• Next distribute Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the troops at Tilbury and use the speech and its historical context as a model for the processes students will use on the speech they select. Provide a bit of background information on the moment in history.
• Then, as a class, go over  Queen Elizabeth’s speech and discuss the rhetorical devices in the speech and the purpose for each one. Adjust the level of guidance you provide, depending on your students' experiences with this type of analysis. The questions provide a place to start, but there are many other stylistic devices to discuss in this selection.

Discuss the audience and the author’s manipulation of the audience. Consider posing questions such as

• This is a successful speech.  Why?
• Elizabeth uses all of the appeals – logos, pathos, and ethos – to convince all of her listeners to fight for her from the loyal follower to the greedy mercenary.  How?
• The tone shifts throughout the selection.  Where?  But more importantly, why?

Martin Luther King, Jr. uses an appeal to pathos in his “I Have a Dream” speech through his historical allusion to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” This is particularly effective for his audience of people sympathetic to the cause of African American men and women who would have been especially moved by this particular reference since it had such a significant impact on the lives of African Americans.

Session Two

• Continue the work from the previous session by distributing the  Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments handout and discussing the assignment and what it requires. See the  background and information sheet for teachers for more details.
• Tell students they will be getting additional practice with analyzing a speech as an argument by showing a short  10-minute clip of a presidential speech . Ask students to think about how the particular moment in history and the national audience contribute to the rhetorical choices made by the speaker.
• Lead a discussion of the speech as an argument with regard to purpose and intent. Work with students to identify warrants, claims, and appeals.
• Ask students to consider how the author manipulates the audience using tone, diction, and stylistic devices. What rhetorical devices aided the author’s manipulation of his audience? Discuss a particular rhetorical device that the President used and the purpose it served.
• Share the Essay Rubric and explain to students the expectations for success on this assignment.
• Allow students to select a speech from the List of Speeches for Students . If they wish to preview any of the speeches, they can type the speaker's name and the title of the speech into a search engine and should have little difficulty finding it.

Session Three

• Take the students to the library and allow them to research their speeches. They should locate their speech and print a copy for them to begin annotating for argumentative structure and rhetorical devices.
• What was the speaker up against?  What is the occasion for the speech?
• What did the author have to keep in mind when composing the text?  
• What were his or her goals?  
• What was his or her ultimate purpose?  
• What was his or her intent?
• Remind students that the writer of the speech is sometimes not the person who delivered the speech, for example, and this will surprise some students. Many people assume that the speaker (president, senator, etc.) is always the writer, and that’s not always the case, so ask your students to check to see who wrote the speech. (They might be surprised at the answer. There’s always a story behind the composition of the speech.)
• Help students find the author of the speech because this will challenge some students. Oftentimes, students assume the speaker is the author, and that’s sometimes not the case. Once the speechwriter is identified, it is easier to find information on the speech. Help students find the history behind the speech without getting too bogged down in the details. They need to understand the climate, but they do not need to be complete experts on the historical details in order to understand the elements of the speech.
• If they wish, students can use the ReadThinkWrite Interactive Notetaker to help them track their notes for their essays. Remind them that their work cannot be saved on this tool and should be printed by the end of the session so they can use it in future work.
• For Session Four, students must bring a thesis, an outline, and all of their research materials to class for a workday. Remind them to refer to the Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments , the Essay Rubric , and any notes they may have taken during the first two sessions as they begin their work.
• The thesis statement should answer the following question: What makes this speech an effective argument and worthy of making this list?

Session Four

• Set up students in heterogeneous groups of four. Ask students to share their outlines and thesis statements.
• Go around to check and to monitor as students share their ideas and progress. The students will discuss their speeches and their research thus far.
• Have students discuss the elements of an argument that they plan on addressing.
• Finally, have students work on writing their papers by writing their introductions with an enticing “grab” or “hook.” If time permits, have students share their work. 
• For Session Five, students should bring in their papers. This session would happen in about a week.

Session Five

• In this session, students will respond each other's drafts using the Peer Response Handout .
• Determine and discuss the final due date with your students. Direct students to Diana Hacker’s MLA site for assistance with their citations if necessary. 
• Remind students that their work will be evaluate using the essay rubric .  They should use the criteria along with the comments from their peer to revise and polish their work.
• During the process of analyzing  Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech , consider showing the related scene from the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age . Though the text of the speech is drastically cut and altered, seeing one filmmaker's vision for the scene may help reinforce the notion of historical context and the importance of audience.
• Allow students to read and/or perform parts of the speeches out loud. Then, they can share some of their thinking about the argumentative structure and rhetorical devices used to make the speech effective. This activity could happen as part of the prewriting process or after essays have been completed.
• Require students to write a graduation speech or a speech on another topic. They can peruse print or online news sources to select a current event that interests them.  Have them choose an audience to whom they would deliver an argumentative speech.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• After peer response has taken place, use the essay rubric to provide feedback on student work. You may change the values of the different categories/requirements to better suit the learning goals for your classroom.
• Calendar Activities
• Lesson Plans
• Student Interactives
• Strategy Guides

Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

This strategy guide clarifies the difference between persuasion and argumentation, stressing the connection between close reading of text to gather evidence and formation of a strong argumentative claim about text.

• Print this resource

Explore Resources by Grade

• Kindergarten K

10 Great Movie Speeches for Teaching Rhetoric

Rhetoric can be difficult for students. Heavy speeches often scare students away from enjoying the beauty of rhetoric. Using movie speeches as an introduction to rhetoric is a great alternative to starting with the historic staples. Students do not have to have a working knowledge of these movies in order to analyze them for rhetoric. All of these speeches can be found HERE . This site is my favorite to use because it has a transcript for each speech below the movie clips, which makes it easy for students to analyze the rhetoric after they watch the speeches. Plus, it’s a one stop site. All the speeches you need are in one place.

Are you looking for a great activity to use in your own classroom with movie speeches? Click on the graphic below for my Movie Speech Rhetorical Analysis Resource.

Coach Brooks Addresses the US Hockey Team

“miracle” 2004.

Powerful sports speeches are always a great asset to rhetoric units. Heavy with pathos, this speech uses repetition and anastrophe to grab the attention of the players before they begin an Olympic championship. Students love the emotion of the speech. It’s a great starting speech because the elements are easy to identify.

Oscar Schindler’s Departure Speech

“schindler’s list” 1993.

Oscar Schindler addresses his factory workers and Nazi guards on the eve of the end of the war. His speech is addressed to two groups separately: his factory workers and the Nazi guards. Addressing the workers, Schindler uses parallel structure and antithesis to express his thoughts on their freedom and his guilt. He then turns to the guards and uses antithesis one more time to urge them to do what is right. Moving and emotional, this speech uses a combination of pathos and logos. It takes a little background knowledge for students to understand this one, but it’s worth the time spent.

Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore Addresses the 7th Calvary

“we were soldiers” 2002.

A list of great movie speeches can’t be complete without a moving battle speech. Almost verbatim from the actual historical speech, Moore’s speech serves as a powerful reminder of universal equality regardless of race or religion. Moore creates a sense of unity among his troops as he promises to fight along side of them throughout the battle.

Mia’s Decision to Become a Princess

“princess diaries” 2001.

An unlikely addition to this list, Mia’s speech is a powerful reminder that sometimes having a platform is all it takes to make a difference in the world. Mia uses rhetorical questions to build her argument as to why she has decided to accept her role as princess. This addition is the result of years of student suggestions for it’s inclusion. I relented and I’m so glad that I did.

President Whitmore Addresses Fighter Pilots

“independence day” 1996.

Aliens and fighter planes grab the attention of students in this inspirational fight speech from the 1996 version of “Independence Day.” President Whitmore uses the holiday to invoke feelings of unity among the fighter pilots and continues his argument by using parallel structure and allusions. If these were to be voted upon, this speech would come out as the collective favorite in my classroom for the past ten years.

T errance Mann- People Will Come

“field of dreams” 1989.

Yes, another sports movie. It’s worth it. I promise. Terrance Mann explains why people will come to Ray’s outrageous dream of a field by using emotion, logic, and hyperbole. His image of what will be stirs both Ray and us to believe that the field will be worth the price.

Harvey Milk’s Address at the Gay Freedom Parade

“milk” 2008.

Students LOVE this speech. An unknown among students, this short speech uses parallel structure, allusion, and pathos to remind the audience that equality does not have one face. If you have not used “Milk” in your classroom for other projects, you need to discover the many uses of this phenomenal film.

Peace by Inches Speech

“on any given sunday” 1999.

Disclaimer: Stong Language (but still PG-13)

This speech deserves a place in this list because of the unlikely inspiration tactics used by coach D’Amato. Most students peg this speech for pathos as first, but upon closer inspection realize that it is logos to the core. He uses the analogy of life as a football game because, after all, “in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small.” Students love that line. And, frankly, so do I.

Gettysburg Speech

“remember the titans” 2000.

Sometimes is takes a little bit of history to understand today. This rallying speech reminds the players of a recently desegregated team that there are many who died to get them where they are. I find that year after year, my students still know and love this movie- especially my football players! Coach Boone uses a combination of logic and emotion to change the outlook of the players who go on to unite as a team.

The Cowardly Lion on Courage

“the wizard of oz” 1939.

What makes a king out of a slave? COURAGE! This fun and playful speech on courage uses rhetorical questions coupled with parallel structure to reinforce the idea that courage is what makes one great and that courage is what the Cowardly Lion is lacking. Students love the whimsical nature of this speech and are drawn into the rhythm of the language.

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Published by Modern ELA Materials

Nicole Brown is a content creator and secondary ELA Teacher in East Tennessee. She has been teaching and creating for over twenty years. You can reach her at [email protected]. View all posts by Modern ELA Materials

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40 famous persuasive speeches you need to hear.

Written by Kai Xin Koh

Across eras of calamity and peace in our world’s history, a great many leaders, writers, politicians, theorists, scientists, activists and other revolutionaries have unveiled powerful rousing speeches in their bids for change. In reviewing the plethora of orators across tides of social, political and economic change, we found some truly rousing speeches that brought the world to their feet or to a startling, necessary halt. We’ve chosen 40 of the most impactful speeches we managed to find from agents of change all over the world – a diversity of political campaigns, genders, positionalities and periods of history. You’re sure to find at least a few speeches in this list which will capture you with the sheer power of their words and meaning!

1. I have a dream by MLK

“I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

Unsurprisingly, Martin Luther King’s speech comes up top as the most inspiring speech of all time, especially given the harrowing conditions of African Americans in America at the time. In the post-abolition era when slavery was outlawed constitutionally, African Americans experienced an intense period of backlash from white supremacists who supported slavery where various institutional means were sought to subordinate African American people to positions similar to that of the slavery era. This later came to be known as the times of Jim Crow and segregation, which Martin Luther King powerfully voiced his vision for a day when racial discrimination would be a mere figment, where equality would reign.

2. Tilbury Speech by Queen Elizabeth I

“My loving people, We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you on a word of a prince, they shall be duly paid. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”

While at war with Spain, Queen Elizabeth I was most renowned for her noble speech rallying the English troops against their comparatively formidable opponent. Using brilliant rhetorical devices like metonymy, meronymy, and other potent metaphors, she voiced her deeply-held commitment as a leader to the battle against the Spanish Armada – convincing the English army to keep holding their ground and upholding the sacrifice of war for the good of their people. Eventually against all odds, she led England to victory despite their underdog status in the conflict with her confident and masterful oratory.

3. Woodrow Wilson, address to Congress (April 2, 1917)

“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. … It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us—however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship—exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few. It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson of the USA delivered his address to Congress, calling for declaration of war against what was at the time, a belligerent and aggressive Germany in WWI. Despite his isolationism and anti-war position earlier in his tenure as president, he convinced Congress that America had a moral duty to the world to step out of their neutral observer status into an active role of world leadership and stewardship in order to liberate attacked nations from their German aggressors. The idealistic values he preached in his speech left an indelible imprint upon the American spirit and self-conception, forming the moral basis for the country’s people and aspirational visions to this very day.

4. Ain’t I A Woman by Sojourner Truth

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? … If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

Hailing from a background of slavery and oppression, Sojourner Truth was one of the most revolutionary advocates for women’s human rights in the 1800s. In spite of the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, her slavemaster refused to free her. As such, she fled, became an itinerant preacher and leading figure in the anti-slavery movement. By the 1850s, she became involved in the women’s rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, she delivered her illuminating, forceful speech against discrimination of women and African Americans in the post-Civil War era, entrenching her status as one of the most revolutionary abolitionists and women’s rights activists across history.

5. The Gettsyburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

President Abraham Lincoln had left the most lasting legacy upon American history for good reason, as one of the presidents with the moral courage to denounce slavery for the national atrocity it was. However, more difficult than standing up for the anti-slavery cause was the task of unifying the country post-abolition despite the looming shadows of a time when white Americans could own and subjugate slaves with impunity over the thousands of Americans who stood for liberation of African Americans from discrimination. He urged Americans to remember their common roots, heritage and the importance of “charity for all”, to ensure a “just and lasting peace” among within the country despite throes of racial division and self-determination.

6. Woman’s Rights to the Suffrage by Susan B Anthony

“For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is to pass a bill of attainder, or an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are for ever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household–which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation. Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as in every one against Negroes.”

Susan B. Anthony was a pivotal leader in the women’s suffrage movement who helped to found the National Woman Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and fight for the constitutional right for women to vote. She courageously and relentlessly advocated for women’s rights, giving speeches all over the USA to convince people of women’s human rights to choice and the ballot. She is most well known for her act of righteous rebellion in 1872 when she voted in the presidential election illegally, for which she was arrested and tried unsuccessfully. She refused to pay the $100 fine in a bid to reject the demands of the American system she denounced as a ‘hateful oligarchy of sex’, sparking change with her righteous oratory and inspiring many others in the women’s suffrage movement within and beyond America.

7. Vladimir Lenin’s Speech at an International Meeting in Berne, February 8, 1916

“It may sound incredible, especially to Swiss comrades, but it is nevertheless true that in Russia, also, not only bloody tsarism, not only the capitalists, but also a section of the so-called or ex-Socialists say that Russia is fighting a “war of defence,” that Russia is only fighting against German invasion. The whole world knows, however, that for decades tsarism has been oppressing more than a hundred million people belonging to other nationalities in Russia; that for decades Russia has been pursuing a predatory policy towards China, Persia, Armenia and Galicia. Neither Russia, nor Germany, nor any other Great Power has the right to claim that it is waging a “war of defence”; all the Great Powers are waging an imperialist, capitalist war, a predatory war, a war for the oppression of small and foreign nations, a war for the sake of the profits of the capitalists, who are coining golden profits amounting to billions out of the appalling sufferings of the masses, out of the blood of the proletariat. … This again shows you, comrades, that in all countries of the world real preparations are being made to rally the forces of the working class. The horrors of war and the sufferings of the people are incredible. But we must not, and we have no reason whatever, to view the future with despair. The millions of victims who will fall in the war, and as a consequence of the war, will not fall in vain. The millions who are starving, the millions who are sacrificing their lives in the trenches, are not only suffering, they are also gathering strength, are pondering over the real cause of the war, are becoming more determined and are acquiring a clearer revolutionary understanding. Rising discontent of the masses, growing ferment, strikes, demonstrations, protests against the war—all this is taking place in all countries of the world. And this is the guarantee that the European War will be followed by the proletarian revolution against capitalism”

Vladimir Lenin remains to this day one of the most lauded communist revolutionaries in the world who brought the dangers of imperialism and capitalism to light with his rousing speeches condemning capitalist structures of power which inevitably enslave people to lives of misery and class stratification. In his genuine passion for the rights of the working class, he urged fellow comrades to turn the “imperialist war” into a “civil” or class war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. He encouraged the development of new revolutionary socialist organisations, solidarity across places in society so people could unite against their capitalist overlords, and criticised nationalism for its divisive effect on the socialist movement. In this speech especially, he lambasts “bloody Tsarism” for its oppression of millions of people of other nationalities in Russia, calling for the working class people to revolt against the Tsarist authority for the proletariat revolution to succeed and liberate them from class oppression.

8. I Have A Dream Speech by Mary Wollstonecraft

“If, I say, for I would not impress by declamation when Reason offers her sober light, if they be really capable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man, when they associate with him; but cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals. Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same degree of strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude, let their virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which admits of no modification, would be common to both. Nay, the order of society as it is at present regulated would not be inverted, for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be practised to bring the balance even, much less to turn it.”

In her vindication of the rights of women, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the pioneers of the feminist movement back in 1792 who not only theorised and advocated revolutionarily, but gave speeches that voiced these challenges against a dominantly sexist society intent on classifying women as irrational less-than-human creatures to be enslaved as they were. In this landmark speech, she pronounces her ‘dream’ of a day when women would be treated as the rational, deserving humans they are, who are equal to man in strength and capability. With this speech setting an effective precedent for her call to equalize women before the law, she also went on to champion the provision of equal educational opportunities to women and girls, and persuasively argued against the patriarchal gender norms which prevented women from finding their own lot in life through their being locked into traditional institutions of marriage and motherhood against their will.

9. First Inaugural Speech by Franklin D Roosevelt

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. … More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly. … I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption. But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

Roosevelt’s famous inaugural speech was delivered in the midst of a period of immense tension and strain under the Great Depression, where he highlighted the need for ‘quick action’ by Congress to prepare for government expansion in his pursuit of reforms to lift the American people out of devastating poverty. In a landslide victory, he certainly consolidated the hopes and will of the American people through this compelling speech.

10. The Hypocrisy of American Slavery by Frederick Douglass

“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

On 4 July 1852, Frederick Douglass gave this speech in Rochester, New York, highlighting the hypocrisy of celebrating freedom while slavery continues. He exposed the ‘revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy’ of slavery which had gone unabolished amidst the comparatively obscene celebration of independence and liberty with his potent speech and passion for the anti-abolition cause. After escaping from slavery, he went on to become a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York with his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. To this day, his fierce activism and devotion to exposing virulent racism for what it was has left a lasting legacy upon pro-Black social movements and the overall sociopolitical landscape of America.

11. Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.”

With her iconic poem Still I Rise , Maya Angelou is well-known for uplifting fellow African American women through her empowering novels and poetry and her work as a civil rights activist. Every bit as lyrical on the page, her recitation of Still I Rise continues to give poetry audiences shivers all over the world, inspiring women of colour everywhere to keep the good faith in striving for equality and peace, while radically believing in and empowering themselves to be agents of change. A dramatic reading of the poem will easily showcase the self-belief, strength and punch that it packs in the last stanza on the power of resisting marginalization.

12. Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.””

In the darkest shadows cast by war, few leaders have been able to step up to the mantle and effectively unify millions of citizens for truly sacrificial causes. Winston Churchill was the extraordinary exception – lifting 1940 Britain out of the darkness with his hopeful, convicted rhetoric to galvanise the English amidst bleak, dreary days of war and loss. Through Britain’s standalone position in WWII against the Nazis, he left his legacy by unifying the nation under shared sacrifices of the army and commemorating their courage.

13. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

“Life for both sexes – and I looked at them (through a restaurant window while waiting for my lunch to be served), shouldering their way along the pavement – is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority – it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney – for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination – over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the great sources of his power….Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. The glories of all our wars would be on the remains of mutton bones and bartering flints for sheepskins or whatever simple ornament took our unsophisticated taste. Supermen and Fingers of Destiny would never have existed. The Czar and the Kaiser would never have worn their crowns or lost them. Whatever may be their use in civilised societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism; how impossible it is for her to say to them this book is bad, this picture is feeble, or whatever it may be, without giving far more pain and rousing far more anger than a man would do who gave the same criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness in life is diminished. How is he to go on giving judgment, civilising natives, making laws, writing books, dressing up and speechifying at banquets, unless he can see himself at breakfast and at dinner at least twice the size he really is?”

In this transformational speech , Virginia Woolf pronounces her vision that ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’. She calls out the years in which women have been deprived of their own space for individual development through being chained to traditional arrangements or men’s prescriptions – demanding ‘gigantic courage’ and ‘confidence in oneself’ to brave through the onerous struggle of creating change for women’s rights. With her steadfast, stolid rhetoric and radical theorization, she paved the way for many women’s rights activists and writers to forge their own paths against patriarchal authority.

14. Inaugural Address by John F Kennedy

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

For what is probably the most historically groundbreaking use of parallelism in speech across American history, President JFK placed the weighty task of ‘asking what one can do for their country’ onto the shoulders of each American citizen. Using an air of firmness in his rhetoric by declaring his commitment to his countrymen, he urges each American to do the same for the broader, noble ideal of freedom for all. With his crucial interrogation of a citizen’s moral duty to his nation, President JFK truly made history.

15. Atoms for Peace Speech by Dwight Eisenhower

“To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to us from generation to generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery towards decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation. Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction?Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “great destroyers”, but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build. It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive,not destructive. It wants agreements, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom and in the confidence that the peoples of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life. So my country’s purpose is to help us to move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men everywhere, can move forward towards peace and happiness and well-being.”

On a possibility as frightful and tense as nuclear war, President Eisenhower managed to convey the gravity of the world’s plight in his measured and persuasive speech centred on the greater good of mankind. Using rhetorical devices such as the three-part paratactical syntax which most world leaders are fond of for ingraining their words in the minds of their audience, he centers the discourse of the atomic bomb on those affected by such a world-changing decision in ‘the minds, hopes and souls of men everywhere’ – effectively putting the vivid image of millions of people’s fates at stake in the minds of his audience. Being able to make a topic as heavy and fraught with moral conflict as this as eloquent as he did, Eisenhower definitely ranks among some of the most skilled orators to date.

16. The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action by Audre Lorde

“I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. What are the words you do not have yet? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am black, because I am myself, a black woman warrior poet doing my work, come to ask you, are you doing yours?”

Revolutionary writer, feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde first delivered this phenomenal speech at Lesbian and Literature panel of the Modern Language Association’s December 28, 1977 meeting, which went on to feature permanently in her writings for its sheer wisdom and truth. Her powerful writing and speech about living on the margins of society has enlightened millions of people discriminated across various intersections, confronting them with the reality that they must speak – since their ‘silence will not protect’ them from further marginalization. Through her illuminating words and oratory, she has reminded marginalized persons of the importance of their selfhood and the radical capacity for change they have in a world blighted by prejudice and division.

17. 1965 Cambridge Union Hall Speech by James Baldwin

“What is dangerous here is the turning away from – the turning away from – anything any white American says. The reason for the political hesitation, in spite of the Johnson landslide is that one has been betrayed by American politicians for so long. And I am a grown man and perhaps I can be reasoned with. I certainly hope I can be. But I don’t know, and neither does Martin Luther King, none of us know how to deal with those other people whom the white world has so long ignored, who don’t believe anything the white world says and don’t entirely believe anything I or Martin is saying. And one can’t blame them. You watch what has happened to them in less than twenty years.”

Baldwin’s invitation to the Cambridge Union Hall is best remembered for foregrounding the unflinching differences in white and African Americans’ ‘system of reality’ in everyday life. Raising uncomfortable truths about the insidious nature of racism post-civil war, he provides several nuggets of thought-provoking wisdom on the state of relations between the oppressed and their oppressors, and what is necessary to mediate such relations and destroy the exploitative thread of racist hatred. With great frankness, he admits to not having all the answers but provides hard-hitting wisdom on engagement to guide activists through confounding times nonetheless.

18. I Am Prepared to Die by Nelson Mandela

“Above all, My Lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy. But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs as it certainly must, it will not change that policy. This then is what the ANC is fighting. Our struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Apartheid is still considered one of these most devastating events of world history, and it would not have ended without the crucial effort and words of Nelson Mandela during his courageous political leadership. In this heartbreaking speech , he voices his utter devotion to the fight against institutionalised racism in African society – an ideal for which he was ‘prepared to die for’. Mandela continues to remind us today of his moral conviction in leading, wherein the world would likely to be a better place if all politicians had the same resolve and genuine commitment to human rights and the abolition of oppression as he did.

19. Critique on British Imperialism by General Aung San

“Do they form their observations by seeing the attendances at not very many cinemas and theatres of Rangoon? Do they judge this question of money circulation by paying a stray visit to a local bazaar? Do they know that cinemas and theatres are not true indicators, at least in Burma, of the people’s conditions? Do they know that there are many in this country who cannot think of going to these places by having to struggle for their bare existence from day to day? Do they know that those who nowadays patronise or frequent cinemas and theatres which exist only in Rangoon and a few big towns, belong generally to middle and upper classes and the very few of the many poor who can attend at all are doing so as a desperate form of relaxation just to make them forget their unsupportable existences for the while whatever may be the tomorrow that awaits them?”

Under British colonial rule, one of the most legendary nationalist leaders emerged from the ranks of the thousands of Burmese to boldly lead them towards independence, out of the exploitation and control under the British. General Aung San’s speech criticising British social, political and economic control of Burma continues to be scathing, articulate, and relevant – especially given his necessary goal of uniting the Burmese natives against their common oppressor. He successfully galvanised his people against the British, taking endless risks through nationalist speeches and demonstrations which gradually bore fruit in Burma’s independence.

20. Nobel Lecture by Mother Teresa

“I believe that we are not real social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the Body Of Christ 24 hours. We have 24 hours in this presence, and so you and I. You too try to bring that presence of God in your family, for the family that prays together stays together. And I think that we in our family don’t need bombs and guns, to destroy to bring peace–just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that strength of presence of each other in the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world. There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do. It is to God Almighty–how much we do it does not matter, because He is infinite, but how much love we put in that action. How much we do to Him in the person that we are serving.”

In contemporary culture, most people understand Mother Teresa to be the epitome of compassion and kindness. However, if one were to look closer at her speeches from the past, one would discover not merely her altruistic contributions, but her keen heart for social justice and the downtrodden. She wisely and gracefully remarks that ‘love begins at home’ from the individual actions of each person within their private lives, which accumulate into a life of goodness and charity. For this, her speeches served not just consolatory value or momentary relevance, as they still inform the present on how we can live lives worth living.

21. June 9 Speech to Martial Law Units by Deng Xiaoping

“This army still maintains the traditions of our old Red Army. What they crossed this time was in the true sense of the expression a political barrier, a threshold of life and death. This was not easy. This shows that the People’s Army is truly a great wall of iron and steel of the party and state. This shows that no matter how heavy our losses, the army, under the leadership of the party, will always remain the defender of the country, the defender of socialism, and the defender of the public interest. They are a most lovable people. At the same time, we should never forget how cruel our enemies are. We should have not one bit of forgiveness for them. The fact that this incident broke out as it did is very worthy of our pondering. It prompts us cool-headedly to consider the past and the future. Perhaps this bad thing will enable us to go ahead with reform and the open policy at a steadier and better — even a faster — pace, more speedily correct our mistakes, and better develop our strong points.”

Mere days before the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping sat with six party elders (senior officials) and the three remaining members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the paramount decision-making body in China’s government. The meeting was organised to discuss the best course of action for restoring social and political order to China, given the sweeping economic reforms that had taken place in the past decade that inevitably resulted in some social resistance from the populace. Deng then gave this astute and well-regarded speech, outlining the political complexities in shutting down student protests given the context of reforms encouraging economic liberalization already taking place, as aligned with the students’ desires. It may not be the most rousing or inflammatory of speeches, but it was certainly persuasive in voicing the importance of taking a strong stand for the economic reforms Deng was implementing to benefit Chinese citizens in the long run. Today, China is an economic superpower, far from its war-torn developing country status before Deng’s leadership – thanks to his foresight in ensuring political stability would allow China to enjoy the fruits of the massive changes they adapted to.

22. Freedom or Death by Emmeline Pankhurst

“You won your freedom in America when you had the revolution, by bloodshed, by sacrificing human life. You won the civil war by the sacrifice of human life when you decided to emancipate the negro. You have left it to women in your land, the men of all civilised countries have left it to women, to work out their own salvation. That is the way in which we women of England are doing. Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won’t do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death. Now whether you approve of us or whether you do not, you must see that we have brought the question of women’s suffrage into a position where it is of first rate importance, where it can be ignored no longer. Even the most hardened politician will hesitate to take upon himself directly the responsibility of sacrificing the lives of women of undoubted honour, of undoubted earnestness of purpose. That is the political situation as I lay it before you today.”

In 1913 after Suffragette Emily Davison stepped in front of King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby and suffered fatal injuries, Emmeline Pankhurst delivered her speech to Connecticut as a call to action for people to support the suffragette movement. Her fortitude in delivering such a sobering speech on the state of women’s rights is worth remembering for its invaluable impact and contributions to the rights we enjoy in today’s world.

23. Quit India by Mahatma Gandhi

“We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. Every true Congressman or woman will join the struggle with an inflexible determination not to remain alive to see the country in bondage and slavery. Let that be your pledge. Keep jails out of your consideration. If the Government keep me free, I will not put on the Government the strain of maintaining a large number of prisoners at a time, when it is in trouble. Let every man and woman live every moment of his or her life hereafter in the consciousness that he or she eats or lives for achieving freedom and will die, if need be, to attain that goal. Take a pledge, with God and your own conscience as witness, that you will no longer rest till freedom is achieved and will be prepared to lay down your lives in the attempt to achieve it. He who loses his life will gain it; he who will seek to save it shall lose it. Freedom is not for the coward or the faint-hearted.”

Naturally, the revolutionary activist Gandhi had to appear in this list for his impassioned anti-colonial speeches which rallied Indians towards independence. Famous for leading non-violent demonstrations, his speeches were a key element in gathering Indians of all backgrounds together for the common cause of eliminating their colonial masters. His speeches were resolute, eloquent, and courageous, inspiring the hope and admiration of many not just within India, but around the world.

24. 1974 National Book Award Speech by Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde

“The statement I am going to read was prepared by three of the women nominated for the National Book Award for poetry, with the agreement that it would be read by whichever of us, if any, was chosen.We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all the women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in this culture, often at great cost and in great pain. We believe that we can enrich ourselves more in supporting and giving to each other than by competing against each other; and that poetry—if it is poetry—exists in a realm beyond ranking and comparison. We symbolically join together here in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best we can for women. We appreciate the good faith of the judges for this award, but none of us could accept this money for herself, nor could she let go unquestioned the terms on which poets are given or denied honor and livelihood in this world, especially when they are women. We dedicate this occasion to the struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification, or derived class: the poet, the housewife, the lesbian, the mathematician, the mother, the dishwasher, the pregnant teen-ager, the teacher, the grandmother, the prostitute, the philosopher, the waitress, the women who will understand what we are doing here and those who will not understand yet; the silent women whose voices have been denied us, the articulate women who have given us strength to do our work.”

Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker wrote this joint speech to be delivered by Adrienne Rich at the 1974 National Book Awards, based on their suspicions that the first few African American lesbian women to be nominated for the awards would be snubbed in favour of a white woman nominee. Their suspicions were confirmed, and Adrienne Rich delivered this socially significant speech in solidarity with her fellow nominees, upholding the voices of the ‘silent women whose voices have been denied’.

25. Speech to 20th Congress of the CPSU by Nikita Khruschev

“Considering the question of the cult of an individual, we must first of all show everyone what harm this caused to the interests of our Party. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had always stressed the Party’s role and significance in the direction of the socialist government of workers and peasants; he saw in this the chief precondition for a successful building of socialism in our country. Pointing to the great responsibility of the Bolshevik Party, as ruling Party of the Soviet state, Lenin called for the most meticulous observance of all norms of Party life; he called for the realization of the principles of collegiality in the direction of the Party and the state. Collegiality of leadership flows from the very nature of our Party, a Party built on the principles of democratic centralism. “This means,” said Lenin, “that all Party matters are accomplished by all Party members – directly or through representatives – who, without any exceptions, are subject to the same rules; in addition, all administrative members, all directing collegia, all holders of Party positions are elective, they must account for their activities and are recallable.””

This speech is possibly the most famed Russian speech for its status as a ‘secret’ speech delivered only to the CPSU at the time, which was eventually revealed to the public. Given the unchallenged political legacy and cult of personality which Stalin left in the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev’s speech condemning the authoritarian means Stalin had resorted to to consolidate power as un-socialist was an important mark in Russian history.

26. The Struggle for Human Rights by Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is my belief, and I am sure it is also yours, that the struggle for democracy and freedom is a critical struggle, for their preservation is essential to the great objective of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security. Among free men the end cannot justify the means. We know the patterns of totalitarianism — the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the sciences, and the church to support autocratic authority; these are the age-old patterns against which men have struggled for three thousand years. These are the signs of reaction, retreat, and retrogression. The United Nations must hold fast to the heritage of freedom won by the struggle of its people; it must help us to pass it on to generations to come. The development of the ideal of freedom and its translation into the everyday life of the people in great areas of the earth is the product of the efforts of many peoples. It is the fruit of a long tradition of vigorous thinking and courageous action. No one race and on one people can claim to have done all the work to achieve greater dignity for human beings and great freedom to develop human personality. In each generation and in each country there must be a continuation of the struggle and new steps forward must be taken since this is preeminently a field in which to stand still is to retreat.”

Eleanor Roosevelt has been among the most well-loved First Ladies for good reason – her eloquence and gravitas in delivering every speech convinced everyone of her suitability for the oval office. In this determined and articulate speech , she outlines the fundamental values that form the bedrock of democracy, urging the rest of the world to uphold human rights regardless of national ideology and interests.

27. The Ballot or The Bullet by Malcolm X

“And in this manner, the organizations will increase in number and in quantity and in quality, and by August, it is then our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit then to form a black nationalist party, we’ll form a black nationalist party. If it’s necessary to form a black nationalist army, we’ll form a black nationalist army. It’ll be the ballot or the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death.”

Inarguably, the revolutionary impact Malcolm X’s fearless oratory had was substantial in his time as a radical anti-racist civil rights activist. His speeches’ emancipatory potential put forth his ‘theory of rhetorical action’ where he urges Black Americans to employ both the ballot and the bullet, strategically without being dependent on the other should the conditions of oppression change. A crucial leader in the fight for civil rights, he opened the eyes of thousands of Black Americans, politicising and convincing them of the necessity of fighting for their democratic rights against white supremacists.

28. Living the Revolution by Gloria Steinem

“The challenge to all of us, and to you men and women who are graduating today, is to live a revolution, not to die for one. There has been too much killing, and the weapons are now far too terrible. This revolution has to change consciousness, to upset the injustice of our current hierarchy by refusing to honor it, and to live a life that enforces a new social justice. Because the truth is none of us can be liberated if other groups are not.”

In an unexpected commencement speech delivered at Vassar College in 1970, Gloria Steinem boldly makes a call to action on behalf of marginalized groups in need of liberation to newly graduated students. She proclaimed it the year of Women’s Liberation and forcefully highlighted the need for a social revolution to ‘upset the injustice of the current hierarchy’ in favour of human rights – echoing the hard-hitting motto on social justice, ‘until all of us are free, none of us are free’.

29. The Last Words of Harvey Milk by Harvey Milk

“I cannot prevent some people from feeling angry and frustrated and mad in response to my death, but I hope they will take the frustration and madness and instead of demonstrating or anything of that type, I would hope that they would take the power and I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let the world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights. … All I ask is for the movement to continue, and if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door…”

As the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, Harvey Milk’s entire political candidature was in itself a radical statement against the homophobic status quo at the time. Given the dangerous times he was in as an openly gay man, he anticipated that he would be assassinated eventually in his political career. As such, these are some of his last words which show the utter devotion he had to campaigning against homophobia while representing the American people, voicing his heartbreaking wish for the bullet that would eventually kill him to ‘destroy every closet door’.

30. Black Power Address at UC Berkeley by Stokely Carmichael

“Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word “Black Power” — and let them address themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That’s white people. They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.”

A forceful and impressive orator, Stokely Carmichael was among those at the forefront of the civil rights movement, who was a vigorous socialist organizer as well. He led the Black Power movement wherein he gave this urgent, influential speech that propelled Black Americans forward in their fight for constitutional rights in the 1960s.

31. Speech on Vietnam by Lyndon Johnson

“The true peace-keepers are those men who stand out there on the DMZ at this very hour, taking the worst that the enemy can give. The true peace-keepers are the soldiers who are breaking the terrorist’s grip around the villages of Vietnam—the civilians who are bringing medical care and food and education to people who have already suffered a generation of war. And so I report to you that we are going to continue to press forward. Two things we must do. Two things we shall do. First, we must not mislead the enemy. Let him not think that debate and dissent will produce wavering and withdrawal. For I can assure you they won’t. Let him not think that protests will produce surrender. Because they won’t. Let him not think that he will wait us out. For he won’t. Second, we will provide all that our brave men require to do the job that must be done. And that job is going to be done. These gallant men have our prayers-have our thanks—have our heart-felt praise—and our deepest gratitude. Let the world know that the keepers of peace will endure through every trial—and that with the full backing of their countrymen, they are going to prevail.”

During some of the most harrowing periods of human history, the Vietnam War, American soldiers were getting soundly defeated by the Vietnamese in guerrilla warfare. President Lyndon Johnson then issued this dignified, consolatory speech to encourage patriotism and support for the soldiers putting their lives on the line for the nation.

32. A Whisper of AIDS by Mary Fisher

“We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long, because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks. Are you human? And this is the right question. Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. They don’t benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person; not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity ­­ people, ready for  support and worthy of compassion. We must be consistent if we are to be believed. We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice, love our children and fear to teach them. Whatever our role as parent or policymaker, we must act as eloquently as we speak ­­ else we have no integrity. My call to the nation is a plea for awareness. If you believe you are safe, you are in danger. Because I was not hemophiliac, I was not at risk. Because I was not gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk. The lesson history teaches is this: If you believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do not see this killer stalking your children, look again. There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place left in America that is safe. Until we genuinely embrace this message, we are a nation at risk.”

Back when AIDS research was still undeveloped, the stigma of contracting HIV was even more immense than it is today. A celebrated artist, author and speaker, Mary Fisher became an outspoken activist for those with HIV/AIDS, persuading people to extend compassion to the population with HIV instead of stigmatizing them – as injustice has a way of coming around to people eventually. Her bold act of speaking out for the community regardless of the way they contracted the disease, their sexual orientation or social group, was an influential move in advancing the human rights of those with HIV and spreading awareness on the discrimination they face.

33. Freedom from Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi

“The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear. Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.”

Famous for her resoluteness and fortitude in campaigning for democracy in Burma despite being put under house arrest by the military government, Aung San Suu Kyi’s speeches have been widely touted as inspirational. In this renowned speech of hers, she delivers a potent message to Burmese to ‘liberate their minds from apathy and fear’ in the struggle for freedom and human rights in the country. To this day, she continues to tirelessly champion the welfare and freedom of Burmese in a state still overcome by vestiges of authoritarian rule.

34. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

“Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Esteemed writer David Foster Wallace gave a remarkably casual yet wise commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 on the importance of learning to think beyond attaining a formal education. He encouraged hundreds of students to develop freedom of thought, a heart of sacrificial care for those in need of justice, and a consciousness that would serve them in discerning the right choices to make within a status quo that is easy to fall in line with. His captivating speech on what it meant to truly be ‘educated’ tugged at the hearts of many young and critical minds striving to achieve their dreams and change the world.

35. Questioning the Universe by Stephen Hawking

“This brings me to the last of the big questions: the future of the human race. If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, we should make sure we survive and continue. But we are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space. The answers to these big questions show that we have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space. That is why I am in favor of manned — or should I say, personned — space flight.”

Extraordinary theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking was a considerable influence upon modern physics and scientific research at large, inspiring people regardless of physical ability to aspire towards expanding knowledge in the world. In his speech on Questioning the Universe, he speaks of the emerging currents and issues in the scientific world like that of outer space, raising and answering big questions that have stumped great thinkers for years.

36. 2008 Democratic National Convention Speech by Michelle Obama

“I stand here today at the crosscurrents of that history — knowing that my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me. All of them driven by the same conviction that drove my dad to get up an hour early each day to painstakingly dress himself for work. The same conviction that drives the men and women I’ve met all across this country: People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift — without disappointment, without regret — that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they’re working for. The military families who say grace each night with an empty seat at the table. The servicemen and women who love this country so much, they leave those they love most to defend it. The young people across America serving our communities — teaching children, cleaning up neighborhoods, caring for the least among us each and every day. People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters — and sons — can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher. People like Joe Biden, who’s never forgotten where he came from and never stopped fighting for folks who work long hours and face long odds and need someone on their side again. All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do — that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.”

Ever the favourite modern First Lady of America, Michelle Obama has delivered an abundance of iconic speeches in her political capacity, never forgetting to foreground the indomitable human spirit embodied in American citizens’ everyday lives and efforts towards a better world. The Obamas might just have been the most articulate couple of rhetoricians of their time, making waves as the first African American president and First Lady while introducing important policies in their period of governance.

37. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

“I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”

Now published into a book, Barack Obama’s heart-capturing personal story of transformational hope was first delivered as a speech on the merits of patriotic optimism and determination put to the mission of concrete change. He has come to be known as one of the most favoured and inspiring presidents in American history, and arguably the most skilled orators ever.

38. “Be Your Own Story” by Toni Morrison

“But I’m not going to talk anymore about the future because I’m hesitant to describe or predict because I’m not even certain that it exists. That is to say, I’m not certain that somehow, perhaps, a burgeoning ménage a trois of political interests, corporate interests and military interests will not prevail and literally annihilate an inhabitable, humane future. Because I don’t think we can any longer rely on separation of powers, free speech, religious tolerance or unchallengeable civil liberties as a matter of course. That is, not while finite humans in the flux of time make decisions of infinite damage. Not while finite humans make infinite claims of virtue and unassailable power that are beyond their competence, if not their reach. So, no happy talk about the future. … Because the past is already in debt to the mismanaged present. And besides, contrary to what you may have heard or learned, the past is not done and it is not over, it’s still in process, which is another way of saying that when it’s critiqued, analyzed, it yields new information about itself. The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets.”

Venerated author and professor Toni Morrison delivered an impressively articulate speech at Wellesley College in 2004 to new graduates, bucking the trend by discussing the importance of the past in informing current and future ways of living. With her brilliance and eloquence, she blew the crowd away and renewed in them the capacity for reflection upon using the past as a talisman to guide oneself along the journey of life.

39. Nobel Speech by Malala Yousafzai

“Dear brothers and sisters, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call “strong” are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult? As we are living in the modern age, the 21st century and we all believe that nothing is impossible. We can reach the moon and maybe soon will land on Mars. Then, in this, the 21st century, we must be determined that our dream of quality education for all will also come true. So let us bring equality, justice and peace for all. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. It is our duty. So we must work … and not wait. I call upon my fellow children to stand up around the world. Dear sisters and brothers, let us become the first generation to decide to be the last. The empty classrooms, the lost childhoods, wasted potential-let these things end with us.”

At a mere 16 years of age, Malala Yousafzai gave a speech on the severity of the state of human rights across the world, and wowed the world with her passion for justice at her tender age. She displayed tenacity and fearlessness speaking about her survival of an assassination attempt for her activism for gender equality in the field of education. A model of courage to us all, her speech remains an essential one in the fight for human rights in the 21st century.

40. Final Commencement Speech by Michelle Obama

“If you are a person of faith, know that religious diversity is a great American tradition, too. In fact, that’s why people first came to this country — to worship freely. And whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh — these religions are teaching our young people about justice, and compassion, and honesty. So I want our young people to continue to learn and practice those values with pride. You see, our glorious diversity — our diversities of faiths and colors and creeds — that is not a threat to who we are, it makes us who we are. So the young people here and the young people out there: Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t matter, or like you don’t have a place in our American story — because you do. And you have a right to be exactly who you are. But I also want to be very clear: This right isn’t just handed to you. No, this right has to be earned every single day. You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms. … It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Our hope that if we work hard enough and believe in ourselves, then we can be whatever we dream, regardless of the limitations that others may place on us. The hope that when people see us for who we truly are, maybe, just maybe they, too, will be inspired to rise to their best possible selves.”

Finally, we have yet another speech by Michelle Obama given in her final remarks as First Lady – a tear-inducing event for many Americans and even people around the world. In this emotional end to her political tenure, she gives an empowering, hopeful, expressive speech to young Americans, exhorting them to take hold of its future in all their diversity and work hard at being their best possible selves.

Amidst the bleak era of our current time with Trump as president of the USA, not only Michelle Obama, but all 40 of these amazing speeches can serve as sources of inspiration and hope to everyone – regardless of their identity or ambitions. After hearing these speeches, which one’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

Article Written By: Kai Xin Koh

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ELA  /  12th Grade  /  Unit 4: Famous Speeches

Famous Speeches

Students analyze and interpret speeches, honing their rhetorical analysis skills and deepening their understanding of how authors use particular strategies to effectively communicate their ideas to a given audience.

• Text and Materials

Key Knowledge

Unit summary.

 In Unit 4, students will refine the skills required for rhetorical analysis. Students will analyze and interpret samples of purposeful writing, in this case speeches, then identify and explain the author’s use of rhetorical strategies. This process includes understanding what an author is saying, how an author is saying it, and why an author is saying it. When we read written texts rhetorically, we are always asking, “What are these words on the page doing ?” along with, “What do these words say ?” Reading instruction will increase students’ appreciation of audience as a complex and varied concept. Students should develop the capacity to anticipate and consider interpretive responses different from their own.  This unit focuses on four goals:

• Describing the rhetorical situation: Intersection between speaker, audience, and purpose
• Identifying an author’s complex and specific purpose for an intended audience with specific needs and values
• Identifying rhetorical appeals (within—but more specifically than—logos, ethos, and pathos)
• Analyzing common rhetorical strategies, including diction, figurative language, syntax, exemplification, tone through patterns (repetition, contrast, juxtaposition), and shifts in patterns.

While we have provided links to text versions of these speeches, it is highly recommended that teachers also employ audio versions of the speeches at various times throughout the unit. Hearing, in addition to reading, the speeches can aid in rhetorical analysis.

Texts and Materials

Some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links. This means that if you click and make a purchase, we receive a small portion of the proceeds, which supports our non-profit mission.

Core Materials

Speech:  “The Whiskey Speech” by Judge Noah Sweat

Speech:  “Purple is the Noblest Shroud” by Empress Theodora

Speech:  “A More Perfect Union” by Barack Obama

Speech:  “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” by Patrick Henry

Speech:  “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” by Winston Churchill

Speech:  “Pearl Harbor Speech” by Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Speech:  “Ain't I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth

Speech:  “Why Sit Ye Here and Die?” by Maria Stewart

This assessment accompanies Unit 4 and should be given on the suggested assessment day or after completing the unit.

Download Content Assessment

Intellectual Prep

Suggestions for how to prepare to teach this unit

Intellectual Prep for English Lessons

• Read and annotate each of the speeches for this unit.
• Identify video or audio versions of speeches if necessary. (There are many options available online, so we are not listing them here and will leave it to the teacher’s discretion.)
• Review the basics of rhetorical analysis by reading What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric? by Hepzibah Roskelly.
• Depending upon your level of familiarity with the CollegeBoard AP English Language and Composition exam, you may wish to spend more time exploring other resources on the College Board AP English Language and Composition Course website.
• Read FRQ 2 in the CollegeBoard 2018 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions .
• Read the CollegeBoard 2018 AP English Language and Composition Sample Student Responses and Scoring Commentary for FRQ 2.
• Read the Chief Reader Report on Student Responses: 2018 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions .

Essential Questions

The central thematic questions addressed in the unit or across units

• Rhetorical Analysis: What is the author saying? How is the author saying it? Why is the author saying it this way?

Writing Focus Areas

Specific skills to focus on when giving feedback on writing assignments

Students will be focused on the reading skill of rhetorical analysis and the corresponding writing skill of staying focused on the task of sharing these analyses as they craft their essays. Thus, the primary areas of focus will be (1) students’ idea development, specifically the ability to effectively convey comprehensive reasoning through writing, and (2) students’ crafting of an essay that contains all of the necessary parts of a rhetorical analysis.

Spiraling Literary Analysis Writing Focus Area

• Analysis: Demonstrates effective and comprehensive reasoning
• Analysis: Effectively and smoothly incorporates evidence
• Focus on Task: Comprehensive and consistently appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience

Related Teacher Tools:

Grades 9-12 Composition Writing Rubric

Literary terms, text-based vocabulary, idioms and word parts to be taught with the text

Literary Terms

rhetorical situation, devices, appeals, Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, logos, ethos, pathos, tone, organization, compare/contrast, diction, parallelism, antithesis

Content Knowledge and Connections

Fishtank ELA units related to the content in this unit.

Students will read speeches on a wide variety of topics, such as World War II, women’s rights, abolitionism, racial relations in America, the Eastern Roman Empire, and temperance. Some background knowledge on these topics will be helpful for students’ comprehension.

Previous Fishtank ELA Connections

• Students have experienced some basic rhetorical analysis in both 9th and 10th grade composition courses.

Identify the rhetorical situation and explain its significance.

Identify the appeals present within the text and the devices/strategies used to generate that appeal.  

Identify the appeals present within a text and the devices/strategies used to generate that appeal.

• “The Whiskey Speech”
• “Purple is the Noblest Shroud”

Analyze how an author uses devices to generate an appeal and ultimately achieve his or her purpose. 

Analyze the rhetorical choices Obama makes to develop his argument. 

Analyze the rhetorical choices Henry makes to develop his argument. 

Draft an analysis that demonstrates effective and comprehensive reasoning.

Analyze the rhetorical choices Churchill makes to develop his argument.

Analyze the rhetorical choices Roosevelt makes to develop his argument.

• “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat”
• “Pearl Harbor Speech”

Compare and contrast rhetorical strategies in speeches by Churchill and Roosevelt.

Evaluate how both authors use specific devices to develop the central idea or purpose of the speech.

Analyze the rhetorical choices Churchill or Roosevelt makes to develop his argument.

Draft an effective introduction that establishes the rhetorical situation and provides a comprehensive thesis describing the rhetorical techniques the author uses to achieve his purpose.

Analyze the rhetorical choices Truth makes to develop her argument.

Analyze the rhetorical choices Stewart makes to develop her argument.

• “Ain't I a Woman?”
• “Why Sit Ye Here and Die?”

Compare and contrast the rhetorical strategies employed by Sojourner Truth and Maria Stewart in their speeches.

Assessment  – 2 days

Complete an optional extension project by writing a speech on a topic of his or her choosing.

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Common Core Standards

Core standards.

The content standards covered in this unit

Language Standards

L.11-12.1 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

L.11-12.2 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

L.11-12.3 — Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

L.11-12.6 — Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Reading Standards for Informational Text

RI.11-12.1 — Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

RI.11-12.2 — Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

RI.11-12.3 — Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

RI.11-12.5 — Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.

RI.11-12.6 — Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.

RI.11-12.7 — Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Speaking and Listening Standards

SL.11-12.1 — Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11—12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

SL.11-12.2 — Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.

SL.11-12.3 — Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.

SL.11-12.6 — Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Writing Standards

W.11-12.1 — Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

W.11-12.4 — Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

W.11-12.5 — Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.

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Political Rhetoric: Famous speeches and rhetorical strategies

• Logos, ethos, pathos
• Rhetorical devices
• Famous speeches and rhetorical strategies
• Sources of famous speeches

An analysis of George W. Bush's speech to Congress on 9/11

Consider the use of Pathos, Ethos and rhetorical strategies in President George W. Bush's speech to Congress on 9/11:

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• George W. Bush's Speech to Congress on 9/11

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25 Examples of Rhetorical Strategies in Famous Speeches

I’m not trying to be cheesy! An emotional response is a meaningful response, and that reaction stays with you long after the presentation is over. Whenever you think of that speaker or of that topic, your brain will bring back those feelings for you- whether they be of motivation, inspiration, sadness, empathy, or otherwise.

Rhetorical strategies use language to convey special meaning and/or to persuade someone. Basically, these strategies can be used to intentionally invoke feelings in others.

If your first reaction to all this is “Huh?” that’s okay- so was mine. Here’s how I understand it now: rhetorical strategies = emotional connection = memorability.

If you’ve ever considered becoming a master presenter (no judgement if you have), you need these tools in your repertoire ASAP. They’re just so effective!

Don’t believe me? All the cool kids are using (or used) them – I’m talking about thought leader Simon Sinek , technology guru Steve Jobs, past American president Barack Obama, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and even good old William Shakespeare.

Unless you’re above any of these greatly respected people, I’m betting that you could benefit from a little rhetorical strategy in your next speech!

25 rhetorical strategies from the best minds

We’ve compiled 25 rhetorical strategies from the most memorable presentations on the planet so that your next presentation is undeniably memorable. Ready to begin?

1. Alliteration:

Two or more words in a row that start with the same sound.

“They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different, and difficult places.” – Barack Obama

2. Allusion:

A statement that hints at something instead of being direct about it.

“You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first. ‘Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size” – Shakespeare

3. Anadiplosis:

Repeating the last word (or words) of a sentence at the beginning of the next sentence.

“Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution.” – George W. Bush

4. Analogy:

A literal comparison of two things.

“A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” – Winston Churchill

5. Anaphora:

Using the same word (or words) to begin 2 or more sentences (or paragraphs) that follow each other.

“I trust Hillary to lead this country because I’ve seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children – not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection but every child who needs a champion: Kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs. Kids who wonder how they’ll ever afford college. Kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English but dream of a better life. Kids who look to us to determine who and what they can be.” – Michelle Obama

6. Anastrophe:

A reversal of the typical ordering of a sentence.

“This much we pledge, and more” – JF Kennedy

7. Antistrophe:

Repeating one (or more) words at the end of a sentence.

“It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can” – Barack Obama

8. Antithesis:

A contrast of thoughts.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong

9. Asyndeton:

Leaving out conjunction words (as or and) from a sentence.

“…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln

10. Assonance:

Repeating a vowel sound in a sentence.

“I feel the need, the need for speed” – Tom Cruise (from the movie Top Gun)

11. Chiasmus:

The reversal of the latter of two parallel sentences.

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” – John F. Kennedy

12. Diacope/Tmesis:

Inserting a word (or more) between the components of a compound word.

“Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, free at last!” – Martin Luther King

13. Epistrophe:

Another name for antistrophe (see above).

“…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth” – Abraham Lincoln

14. Expletive:

Using a word or phrase only to fill out a sentence for grammar, rhythm or balance.

“… we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving …” – Winston Churchill

15. Germinatio:

The repetition of a word within the sentence.

“That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.” – Steve Jobs

16. Hyperbole:

Exaggerating a description for emphasis.

“Best version of Google Maps on the planet, widgets, and all with Edge and Wi-Fi networking.” – Steve Jobs

17. Hypophora:

Posing a question that you will answer yourself.

“When the enemy struck on that June day of 1950, what did America do? It did what it always has done in all its times of peril. It appealed to the heroism of its youth” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

18. Litotes:

An understatement that expresses an affirmative by negating its opposite.

“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

19. Meiosis:

A massive understatement.

“The situation has developed, not necessarily to our advantage” – Emperor Hirohito, announcing to the Japanese people that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

20. Metaphor:

Comparing two unlike objects to provide a clearer description.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” – William Shakespeare

21. Parallelism:

using a sequence of identical constructions in writing

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I will learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

22. Scesis Onomaton:

Repeating two (or more) different words with identical or similar meaning within the same sentence.

“That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America” – Barack Obama

23. Simile:

Comparing two unlike things using the words “like” or “as” with an example.

“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

24. Symploce:

Repeating one (or more) words at the beginning and end of successive sentences.

“In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone” – Barack Obama

25. Tricolon:

A sentence with three clearly defined parts of equal length

Rhetorical strategies improve audience engagement

If you got a little lost amidst the English jargon, here are the 2 main takeaways you need to know:

• Repetition emphasizes meaning Repetition is perhaps the most common rhetorical strategy. Whether it be the repetition of a word, a phrase, or a specific sound, it is incredibly effective. Use this strategy to build meaning behind the essential points you need to get across.
• Comparisons facilitate understanding Comparisons are also an extremely popular strategy, likely because they make the subject matter more relatable. If your audience can identify with what you’re saying, that creates an opportunity for you to cultivate a connection with them.

In sum, the best designed presentations , a slick new outfit, or a commanding voice may impress an audience initially, and can be important to gain their attention, but they lack true substance for any long-term retention. Rhetorical strategies are the single greatest tool for memorability. If you recognized even one of these examples, you just proved that rhetoric strategies are memorable. Why not start using them to your advantage?

Incorporating rhetorical strategies is kind of like learning how to ride a bike – you’re going to think you look unsure the first few times you try and you’re probably going to walk away with some scrapes and bruises. But, once you gain confidence, you’ll be able to ride circles around everyone else.

See what I did there? Here’s to being memorable!

Note: All definitions have been adapted from Your Dictionary .

Looking for more presentation insights?

Check out our Top 30 Most Popular Presentations of All Time , 16 Strategies Used by Pitch Deck Designers , 10 Things to Never Do When Presenting , or read our Top 10 Presentation Tips .

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6 Speeches to Teach Rhetorical Devices

People use rhetorical devices in speeches and in other forms of writing in order to create a particular effect on their audience. Understanding these devices and rhetorically analyzing a text allows you to see its true purpose; as such, rhetorical analysis is a necessary skill to develop in high school ELA courses. 

One of the best ways to teach and learn rhetorical devices is through looking at speeches! Because rhetoric is used to influence an audience, it is an invaluable tool for persuasive writing and speaking. Let’s dive into rhetorical devices and 6 of the best speeches that use rhetorical tools.

What are Rhetorical Devices?

Rhetorical devices are the stylistic tools that writers use in order to influence their audience. They can attribute emphasis to certain ideas or influence the tone of the writing (for that reason, rhetorical devices are exceptionally effective in poetry).

Together with rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) and figurative language (similes, metaphors, hyperbole, etc.), stylistic rhetorical devices are instrumental in persuasive writing. Each device has its own effect, and writers of speeches use them tactfully to help persuade their audience. This article will focus on the following stylistic rhetorical devices:

1. Alliteration

Likely the most commonly known rhetorical device, alliteration is the repetition of the same beginning sound across several words. Alliteration is the backbone of many tongue twisters and catchy phrases:

Example : “ E ven e lephants e njoy e ating e ggs e very day.”

In persuasive writing, it’s a bold way to add emphasis to certain words. Consider the way that many companies opt for an alliterative name to add extra emphasis and catchiness:

Example : A merican A irlines, P ay P al, K it K at…

2. Anaphora

Anaphora is the repetition of the same words at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences. 

Example : “ Give me liberty or give me death.” (Patrick Henry)

Another star of nursery rhymes and silly sayings, anaphora adds rhythm and style to a sentence. In literature and speechwriting, anaphora is used to add special emphasis to a phrase.

3. Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sounds throughout a sentence/line of text.

Example : “ O Rome o , Rome o , wheref o re art th o u Rome o ?” (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet )

Sometimes referred to as “vowel rhyme ”, assonance adds rhythm to a sentence and helps the writer/speaker develop a text’s particular mood. Notice how the “o” sound repetition above develops a woeful ambiance. 

(Plus, to pronounce “o” you must purse your lips—by creating this assonance with “o”, Shakespeare is having Juliet purse her lips as she calls out for Romeo, as if she’s blowing a kiss. See how rhetorical devices can convey hidden meanings ?)

4. Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds throughout words (particularly when the vowels are different). 

Example : “The un c ertainty of the s our c e s ha s cau s ed de s pair.”

Like assonance, consonance is used to add rhythm and develop the mood of a piece. Consonance is also an effective tool to add emphasis in a subtler way than alliteration.

5. Parallelism

Parallelism is the repetition of the same grammatical structure in the same sentence or throughout multiple sentences.

Example : “Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

Writers use parallelism to connect ideas, add emphasis, and develop rhythm. You can think of parallelism as the use of a “template” for a repeated phrase, with blanks that are filled in with certain words that the author wants to emphasize. 

6. Antithesis

Antithesis is the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas, often in the same grammatical structure. 

Example : “Give a man a fish , and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish , and you feed him for a lifetime.” 

Antithesis is a type of parallelism that has a particular focus on contrasting ideas, indicating strong emotions and opposition. Writers often use antithesis to convey ideas that involve a distinct choice between two different ideas. 

Like the example above: “____ a man __ fish, and you feed him for a _____.” The creator of this proverb uses the stark contrast between “a day” and “a lifetime” to emphasize the value of teaching someone the skills needed to feed themself over feeding them yourself.

7. Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like what it’s named after.

Example : Tick tock, moo, thud, squeak…

Most often used in writing or speeches that have a lighter tone, onomatopoeia indicates the sound of an object or creature being described. For instance, many advertisements say “tick tock!” to indicate that a sale is limited time.

Note: If you ever have trouble finding rhetorical devices in speeches, read the text aloud! Speeches are meant to be read aloud, and rhetorical devices will stand out to your ears.

Rhetorical Analysis of “I Have a Dream”

Martin Luther King Jr., delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech.

One of the most influential speeches in history is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” , spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. This speech is a literary monument of the Civil Rights era, addressing the unjustly unequal treatment of Black Americans and calling for all Americans to peacefully act against it. 

As such, “I Have A Dream” is one of the best speeches to teach rhetorical devices due to its historic significance and effective rhetoric. Here are some quotes from “I Have a Dream” in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses rhetorical devices to persuade his audience, illustrating the topics we dove into above.

“One hundred years later…”

“[The Emancipation Proclamation] came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of [slave’s] captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”

King begins “I Have a Dream” by reflecting on the Emancipation Proclamation, which was signed 100 years before (on January 1, 1863), followed by this quote. He uses both anaphora and parallelism by repeating “One hundred years later” at the beginning of each sentence, followed by descriptions of the present-day experiences of Black Americans. By placing special emphasis on “One hundred years later”, he illustrates that it had been a full century since slavery was abolished, but Black Americans still did not have the same freedoms as white Americans.

Consonance to Convey Urgency

 “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”

In this quote’s second sentence, King uses two different kinds of consonance to convey the urgency of the situation. He repeats the “s” sound in the first half: “Thi s s weltering s ummer of the Negro’ s legitimate di s content…” ; then, his consonance switches to the “d”/”t” sound: “invigora t ing au t umn of free d om and equali t y.” The part of the sentence with “s” consonance contextualizes the current moment, while the part with “d”/”t” consonance is the hopeful future. 

The civil rights movement had been cultivating for decades prior to the March on Washington, which is one of its defining moments. King’s use of consonance develops an urgent mood, conveying this strong movement that had been building and culminating in that moment (the sweltering summer). Then, he shifts the consonance to a different consonant sound, shifting the mood to illustrate the shift in progress he is hoping for (the invigorating autumn of freedom and equality), emphasizing that the movement will continue until there is progress.

Assonance with “We”

“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

In this quote, Martin Luther King Jr. urges his audience not to give into hatred in response to the discrimination they face. He uses assonance to emphasize one key phrase within the quote: “ w e must not b e guilt y of wrongful d eed s”. When read aloud, the “ee” sound stands out boldly, drawing special attention to those particular words while developing a tone of togetherness. 

More “I Have a Dream” Rhetorical Analysis Prompts:

There is so much more to discover when it comes to the language of “I Have a Dream”. If you need a jumping-off point for your own rhetorical analysis, try these guiding questions:

• Shortly after the first quote we explored, Martin Luther King Jr. uses the metaphor of “cashing a check”. What does he illustrate through this metaphor and how? Why a check?
• King uses anaphora many times in “I Have a Dream”, such as with “Now is the time”, “With this faith”, and, of course, “I have a dream”. Pick one instance in which he uses anaphora and analyze it.
• What is the significance of the song near the end of the speech? Which rhetorical devices are used in the song?

Famous Speeches with Rhetorical Devices

All speeches use some kind of rhetorical devices (between the stylistic tools we explored above, figurative language, and rhetorical appeals) because they are effective tools to verbally convey ideas and persuade an audience. These are some of the most influential and famous speeches —by looking at the rhetorical devices in speeches like these, you can see how the speechwriters and/or speakers used these devices to shape history.

“Speech to the Troops at Tilbury”, Queen Elizabeth I (August 9, 1588)

The ruler of England from 1558 to 1603, Queen Elizabeth I led England through foreign policy conflicts such as the Nine Years’ War in Ireland and the threat of the Spanish Armada. Her “ Speech to the Troops at Tilbury ” was delivered to the English troops defending the country against a looming, expected invasion by the Spanish Armada.

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too…” (Elizabeth I’s speech includes repetition, strong appeals to her troops’ emotions, and this metaphor that strengthens her authority as a woman in power.)

“Gettysburg Address”, Abraham Lincoln (November 19, 1863)

Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg (the Civil War’s deadliest battle), Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. A very brief set of remarks, the Gettysburg Address wasn’t even scheduled to be the primary speech of the ceremony, and its precise wording is different in each of the manuscripts written by Lincoln. Despite this, it is one of the most prominent speeches in American history, securing itself as one of our short speeches to teach rhetorical devices.

“…We can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground.” (Lincoln begins the final paragraph of his speech with anaphora.)

“Ain’t I a Woman?”, Sojourner Truth (May 29, 1851)

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?” (Truth uses various types of repetition to convey her ideas and strengthen her emotional appeals.)

“I Will Fight No More Forever”, Chief Joseph (October 5, 1877)

The Nez Perce were forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands in eastern Oregon by the United States in the late 19th century. Under pressure to relocate, this indigenous tribe split into two groups—those who accepted the relocation to a reservation in Idaho, and those who would flee to fight for their land and freedom. 

On June 15, 1877, Chief Joseph and others led 750 Nez Perce in an attempt to find a new sanctuary, but they were pursued by U.S. troops for months. They finally surrendered on October 5, when Chief Joseph gave his speech, “ I Will Fight No More Forever ”. 

“Our chiefs are killed; Looking-glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-suit is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men, now, who say ’yes’ or ’no’. He who led on the young men is dead.” (Like the other extemporaneous speakers in this collection, Chief Joseph’s use of repetition and strong emotional appeals convey his anguish and urgency to save who is left of his people.

“Citizenship in a Republic”, Theodore Roosevelt (April 23, 1910)

This speech is lengthy and Roosevelt conducts a thorough analysis of the topic of active citizenship. He uses rhetorical devices tactfully to apply greater emphasis to certain ideas. 

“The children of their successors and supplanters, and then their children and their children and children’s children, change and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities and all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant, self-centered, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and blind to its own shortcomings.” (Roosevelt uses several instances of alliteration to add rhythm to his speech and emphasize the ideas he joins together—”successors and supplanters…vices and virtues…)

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Now that you have some examples, look for rhetorical devices in speeches on your own! Rich with literary tools and historical context, speeches help students learn how to recognize, analyze, and effectively use rhetorical devices to persuade an audience. Also, keep in mind: in addition to the stylistic tools we took a look at in this article, appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) and figurative language are just as important to understand when it comes to rhetorical analysis.

If you’re struggling with concepts like rhetorical analysis or looking for ways to improve your English skills, Piqosity’s here to help! Alongside our SAT and ACT test prep courses, we offer full online English courses , each including dozens of concept lessons, personalized practice software, and over 100 reading comprehension passages—including two full novels per course !

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Elizabeth the Rhetorician . An Analysis of the Greatest Speeches by the Virgin Queen

Myriam Di Maio

Myriam Di Maio is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at the University of Verona, Italy. Her major research interests are the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and the law. She is currently focusing on the plays written by the English dramatist John Webster.

In the recent past Elizabeth Tudor’s rhetorical charisma has raised an ever-increasing interest within the academic domain. The scope of this paper is to examine the queen’s abilities to persuade and captivate her subjects, as well as her diplomatic attitudes and magniloquence; in pursuing this aim, great attention will be given to the most remarkable speeches she gave before the dignitaries of the royal crown and the English militancy, with particular regard to those rhetorical skills she learnt to master and sharpen over the years. Since the political matter was, to her, an expression of ‘inwardness,’ Elizabeth’s way of ruling has always reflected her personal vicissitudes. Looking at her public speeches with a discerning eye means probing her mind quite consciously and attempting to identify with one of the greatest sovereigns whose mark on the sixteenth century European scene remains indelible.

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