A-Z GREAT SPEECHES

The top twenty unforgettable speeches as chosen by you

• 1. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I have a dream, 28 August 1963, Washington DC.
• 2. Jesus. Sermon on the Mount. c27.
• 3. Paul Keating. The Redfern Address, 10 December 1992, Redfern Park.
• 4. Winston Churchill. We Shall Fight on the Beaches, 4 June 1940, House of Commons.
• 5. Abraham Lincoln. Gettysburg Address, 19 November 1863.
• 6. John F. Kennedy. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Inaugural speech 20 January 1961, Washington DC.
• 7. Earl Spencer. Funeral Oration for Diana Princess of Wales, 6 September 1997, Westminster Abbey.
• 8. Henry V Act IV Scene III. Author William Shakespeare c 1599. St Crispin’s Day speech made before the Battle of Agincourt (which occurred on 25 October 1415).
• 9. Gough Whitlam. The Dismissal, 11 November 1975, Parliament House steps.
• 10. Queen Elizabeth I. I have the heart and stomach of a king, 9 August 1588. (Address to the troops at Tilbury as the Spanish Armada approached Britain.)
• 11. Nelson Mandela. An Ideal for Which I am Prepared to Die. Statement at trial, 20 April 1964, Johannesburg.
• 12. Mahatma Gandhi. Non-violence is the first article of my faith, 23 March 1922, Ahmadabad.
• 13. Socrates. Statement at trial condemning him to death, 399BC, Athens.
• 14. Robert Kennedy. Address to National Union of South African Students, 7 June 1966, Cape Town University.
• 15. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. We Now Demand Our Right To Vote, Keynote Address to Women’s Rights Convention, 19 July 1848 New York.
• 16. William Wilberforce. Abolition of Slavery, 12 May 1789, House of Commons.
• 17. Alfred Deakin. These are the times that try men’s souls, 15 March 1898, Bendigo.
• 18. Pericles. Funeral Oration for the fallen of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BC.
• 19. Mark Antony. Friends, Romans, Countrymen Lend Me Your Ears, Julius Caesar Act III Scene II. Author William Shakespeare c1599.
• 20. Ben Chifley. The Light on the Hill, 12 June 1949, ALP Conference.

The Sermon On The Mount, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, was given by Jesus of Nazareth to a group of disciples in 30 AD. It contains many of the central tenets of Christianity. Read by Robert Menzies.