"Always make it personal." That's the one piece of advice I took away from a college speechwriting course. Our professor - a kindly man in his 50s who had once written for Reagan - was a big believer in the power of anecdote. "Most of you will at some point have to give a wedding toast or a graduation party speech," he said. "The worst thing you can do is be generic."
Of course, that's far from the best one can do. As a former speech club nerd who performed everything from Greek tragedy to Arabic poetry to recitations of the phone book, I've got a personal list of speeches I really like. YouTube links where possible.
Sheryl Sandberg, Barnard Commencement 2011
Sandberg is the world's universal girl crush prior to this whole Facebook IPO thing that's about to happen. Her bio is, frankly, frighteningly precocious, but she won my heart ages ago with her outspoken support for female nerdiness. (Really, not kidding about this.) Plus, it's heartening to hear an extremely powerful executive cop to feeling like crap because he/she got ripped by an anonymous blog. Let's be honest - we all hurt when people hate on us, especially when it isn't fair, but no one likes to admit that it hurts, especially at work. Interestingly, Sandberg's delivery does not sell this speech - she's a bit awkward and she's got laryngitis - but the speech works because it so clearly comes from the heart and so aptly represents her philosophy.
Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention 2004
The speech that won the American presidency. Unfortunately - or fortunately - not for John Kerry, whom the speech was ostensibly meant to support. With this speech Obama unwittingly created a movement, proving that even the country that elected George W. Bush twice could still have an electoral soft spot for intellectualism. In a Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen admitted that when this speech ended, she stood up in the darkness of her apartment and cheered. That's how I felt, too. Masterfully orated, beautifully constructed, deeply felt. It remains the best speech Obama has given to date.
Mary Fisher, Republican National Convention 1992
In Mary Fisher, the AIDS awareness movement found a brave (and socially palatable!) spokesperson. People might quibble about Fisher's delivery - I think it's a little flat - but there's no denying her sincerity or her artistry. It's always nice to hear a non-pol speak at one of the conventions, too. A lot like Martin Luther King Jr and other famous speakers, Fisher transcends what is an intensely personal tragedy. When she says, "I do not want [my children] to think, as I once did, that courage is the absence of fear; I want them to know that courage is the strength to act wisely when most we are afraid," she provides a maxim not just for her experience with AIDS but also for the human experience with darkness. Sometimes, admitting to fear - or to self-doubt, like Sandberg above - can be the fastest way to win an audience.
African man, Columbia University 2006
"I have lost 50 members of my family to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur." This remains the most startling statistic I've ever heard. Many people living in America probably can't name 50 family members without consulting a genealogy. The circumstances under which I heard this speech were singular. I was living in Manhattan, and to keep a Muslim friend company I fasted one day for Ramadan and went to iftaar dinner at Columbia University. The dinner was free, the audience numbered 300. But the keynote speech, by an African Muslim man who asked how Muslims could stand by while their fellows in Africa were murdered, reduced me. He quoted the famous line from the Qu'ran (also a line in the Talmud): "'He who saves one life it is as if he has saved all humanity; he who takes one life it is as if he has destroyed all humanity." There are days when I remember this speech - not just the words, but the effect it had on me - and I feel terribly helpless and terribly guilty.
Steven Chu, Washington University in St. Louis 2010
After hearing Steven Chu speak at Washington University's graduation (my sister's), I felt cheated that I'd gotten Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose speech at my own graduation I honestly could not remember for the life of me. Graduation speeches are famously lucrative and famously easy, which might explain where there are so many bad ones out there. Chu's speech is not as powerful as some of the others on this list, but it's a very solid, very respectable commencement address. Chu's remarks about energy may not have resonated with the entire crowd - for a graduation speech, this one is pretty political - but they serve to illustrate my central point. It's always better, when tasked with a giving a speech, to speak honestly and personally, and to illustrate grand points with personal examples.
Sojourner Truth, Women's Convention 1851
This is the speech I want to recite every time some jerk takes my taxi, lets the door slam in my face or performs any other act of so-called "feminism." Great speeches draw on universal themes. When Truth says, "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?" I'm reminded of Shylock's famous speech in Merchant of Venice, when he lashes out against anti-Semitism by saying, "If you prick us [Jewish people], do we not bleed?" Of course, it sets the stage for Shylock's eventual demise, but it's still a great piece of oratory.
William Lyon Phelps, "The Pleasure of Books" 1933
There is just so, so much in this speech that I love that it's hard to pick out a single line, but how about, "There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history." Anyone who feels a deep connection to books - a mental connection so undeniable it sometimes feels bodily - will understand exactly what Phelps, an English professor at Yale, is talking about. And surely there's something universal about literature or stories; or so many societies wouldn't have felt compelled to ban or burn things they found objectionable. Phelps' address came less than a month before students at German universities gathered for mass bonfires of literature they considered unpatriotic.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg 1863
Arguably not the best-delivered address in American presidential history. But it's a great address! I've generally avoided speeches by sitting presidents because then they would dominate this list, but I make a special exception for Gettysburg, mainly because it's the speech that introduced me to political speeches. I was 11 or so and visited the Lincoln Memorial for the first time, where this speech is engraved across one wall. Over the course of subsquent visits to the Lincoln Memorial - and since I grew up near DC, there was always someone visiting who wanted to see the monument - I set myself the job of memorizing the entire thing. Not all that impressive, since it isn't that long.
William Faulkner, Stockholm 1950
Faulkner's sweet, rolling Southern accent underscores one of the most powerful tributes to the writer's art in recent memory. Rumor has it that he delivered this speech while on a massive bender and the audience barely understood a word of it. Brave sentiments like, "The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail," serve as a call to arms, as does "He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart." Despite this self-professed dedication to higher feelings, Faulker himself was, like many articulate and literary men of (only?) his time, a raging drunk and a reckless philanderer. Can't win them all, I guess.
Unknown woman, unknown time
Bear with me. I was around six years old when I first heard this speech. I seem to remember it was at one of the RNCs, but I can't find a record of it now when I look. The woman spoke about being a rape survivor. I can still recite pieces of this speech from memory. The bit about how her husband wasn't home, and the perpetrator of the crime was 17. The moment at the end when she said, "I remember standing on my porch and trying to count the stars; now I stand at my window, with my door locked, and try to count them." This speech broke my heart and devastated me. At the time I couldn't understand how she could talk about something so personal, but I was a kid and didn't really understand much of anything. Since then I've been to tons of "Take Back the Night" marches, but this is probably the first speech in my life that made an impression on me.
Of course, that's far from the best one can do. As a former speech club nerd who performed everything from Greek tragedy to Arabic poetry to recitations of the phone book, I've got a personal list of speeches I really like. YouTube links where possible.
Sheryl Sandberg, Barnard Commencement 2011
Sandberg is the world's universal girl crush prior to this whole Facebook IPO thing that's about to happen. Her bio is, frankly, frighteningly precocious, but she won my heart ages ago with her outspoken support for female nerdiness. (Really, not kidding about this.) Plus, it's heartening to hear an extremely powerful executive cop to feeling like crap because he/she got ripped by an anonymous blog. Let's be honest - we all hurt when people hate on us, especially when it isn't fair, but no one likes to admit that it hurts, especially at work. Interestingly, Sandberg's delivery does not sell this speech - she's a bit awkward and she's got laryngitis - but the speech works because it so clearly comes from the heart and so aptly represents her philosophy.
Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention 2004
The speech that won the American presidency. Unfortunately - or fortunately - not for John Kerry, whom the speech was ostensibly meant to support. With this speech Obama unwittingly created a movement, proving that even the country that elected George W. Bush twice could still have an electoral soft spot for intellectualism. In a Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen admitted that when this speech ended, she stood up in the darkness of her apartment and cheered. That's how I felt, too. Masterfully orated, beautifully constructed, deeply felt. It remains the best speech Obama has given to date.
Mary Fisher, Republican National Convention 1992
In Mary Fisher, the AIDS awareness movement found a brave (and socially palatable!) spokesperson. People might quibble about Fisher's delivery - I think it's a little flat - but there's no denying her sincerity or her artistry. It's always nice to hear a non-pol speak at one of the conventions, too. A lot like Martin Luther King Jr and other famous speakers, Fisher transcends what is an intensely personal tragedy. When she says, "I do not want [my children] to think, as I once did, that courage is the absence of fear; I want them to know that courage is the strength to act wisely when most we are afraid," she provides a maxim not just for her experience with AIDS but also for the human experience with darkness. Sometimes, admitting to fear - or to self-doubt, like Sandberg above - can be the fastest way to win an audience.
African man, Columbia University 2006
"I have lost 50 members of my family to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur." This remains the most startling statistic I've ever heard. Many people living in America probably can't name 50 family members without consulting a genealogy. The circumstances under which I heard this speech were singular. I was living in Manhattan, and to keep a Muslim friend company I fasted one day for Ramadan and went to iftaar dinner at Columbia University. The dinner was free, the audience numbered 300. But the keynote speech, by an African Muslim man who asked how Muslims could stand by while their fellows in Africa were murdered, reduced me. He quoted the famous line from the Qu'ran (also a line in the Talmud): "'He who saves one life it is as if he has saved all humanity; he who takes one life it is as if he has destroyed all humanity." There are days when I remember this speech - not just the words, but the effect it had on me - and I feel terribly helpless and terribly guilty.
Steven Chu, Washington University in St. Louis 2010
After hearing Steven Chu speak at Washington University's graduation (my sister's), I felt cheated that I'd gotten Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose speech at my own graduation I honestly could not remember for the life of me. Graduation speeches are famously lucrative and famously easy, which might explain where there are so many bad ones out there. Chu's speech is not as powerful as some of the others on this list, but it's a very solid, very respectable commencement address. Chu's remarks about energy may not have resonated with the entire crowd - for a graduation speech, this one is pretty political - but they serve to illustrate my central point. It's always better, when tasked with a giving a speech, to speak honestly and personally, and to illustrate grand points with personal examples.
Sojourner Truth, Women's Convention 1851
This is the speech I want to recite every time some jerk takes my taxi, lets the door slam in my face or performs any other act of so-called "feminism." Great speeches draw on universal themes. When Truth says, "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?" I'm reminded of Shylock's famous speech in Merchant of Venice, when he lashes out against anti-Semitism by saying, "If you prick us [Jewish people], do we not bleed?" Of course, it sets the stage for Shylock's eventual demise, but it's still a great piece of oratory.
William Lyon Phelps, "The Pleasure of Books" 1933
There is just so, so much in this speech that I love that it's hard to pick out a single line, but how about, "There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history." Anyone who feels a deep connection to books - a mental connection so undeniable it sometimes feels bodily - will understand exactly what Phelps, an English professor at Yale, is talking about. And surely there's something universal about literature or stories; or so many societies wouldn't have felt compelled to ban or burn things they found objectionable. Phelps' address came less than a month before students at German universities gathered for mass bonfires of literature they considered unpatriotic.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg 1863
Arguably not the best-delivered address in American presidential history. But it's a great address! I've generally avoided speeches by sitting presidents because then they would dominate this list, but I make a special exception for Gettysburg, mainly because it's the speech that introduced me to political speeches. I was 11 or so and visited the Lincoln Memorial for the first time, where this speech is engraved across one wall. Over the course of subsquent visits to the Lincoln Memorial - and since I grew up near DC, there was always someone visiting who wanted to see the monument - I set myself the job of memorizing the entire thing. Not all that impressive, since it isn't that long.
William Faulkner, Stockholm 1950
Faulkner's sweet, rolling Southern accent underscores one of the most powerful tributes to the writer's art in recent memory. Rumor has it that he delivered this speech while on a massive bender and the audience barely understood a word of it. Brave sentiments like, "The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail," serve as a call to arms, as does "He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart." Despite this self-professed dedication to higher feelings, Faulker himself was, like many articulate and literary men of (only?) his time, a raging drunk and a reckless philanderer. Can't win them all, I guess.
Unknown woman, unknown time
Bear with me. I was around six years old when I first heard this speech. I seem to remember it was at one of the RNCs, but I can't find a record of it now when I look. The woman spoke about being a rape survivor. I can still recite pieces of this speech from memory. The bit about how her husband wasn't home, and the perpetrator of the crime was 17. The moment at the end when she said, "I remember standing on my porch and trying to count the stars; now I stand at my window, with my door locked, and try to count them." This speech broke my heart and devastated me. At the time I couldn't understand how she could talk about something so personal, but I was a kid and didn't really understand much of anything. Since then I've been to tons of "Take Back the Night" marches, but this is probably the first speech in my life that made an impression on me.
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