What are some good speeches about standing up for yourself?

[spookymulder93]

I want to read a speech that gets the blood boiling.

[Alexander III]

In Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound there is a beautiful speech made by Prometheus, about willing to endure any torment for he had faith in his cause.

Let me see If I can find it

Found It !


It is no dishonor
For an enemy to suffer at his enemy's hands.
So let the pronged locks of lightning be launched at me,
Let the air be roused with thunder and convulsion of wild winds,
Let hurricanes upheave by roots the base of the earth,
Let the sea-waves' roaring savagery
Confound the courses of the heavenly stars;
Let him lift me high and hurl me to black Tartarus
On ruthless floods of irresistible doom:
I am one whom he cannot kill.

[sithkittie]

Ooh, that's a good one.

I've been trying to think of one all day, but I keep coming back to the ones in Shakespeare's Henry V, which I'm not sure are all that related... they're good ones though.

[B. Laumness]

- Thucydides, Pericles' funeral oration (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PERICLES.HTM)

- Shakespeare, Marc Antony's speech (http://www.ibiblio.org/ais/speechan.htm), played by Brando (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9gnHpJt68M)

- Saint-Just, 12/27/1792, on the king's fate, in French (http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Discours_de_Louis_Antoine_L%C3%A9on_de_Saint-Just_%C3%A0_la_Convention_le_27_d%C3%A9cembre_1792 ), in English (http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/325/) (only a small part)

- Victor Hugo, 08/21/1849, speech at the International Peace Congress, in French (http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Congr%C3%A8s_de_la_Paix_1849), in English (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L-exAAAAMAAJ&dq=peace+congress+gilpin&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=JQs9rLOd9K&sig=woJDwoWvA8n6xYr-cJ0vBBtitFg&hl=en&ei=2O87S6qoLZLy0gSUrbySBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=peace%20congress%20gilpin&f=false) (page 10)

[arrytus]

Hamlet's 'Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a mere fit of passion, can force his soul so to his own conceit? etc...'

[kelby_lake]

From Julius Caesar:
CASSIUS
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me 'Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried 'Give me some drink, Titinius,'
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.



Or also from JC:

CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.

[mortalterror]

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI always does it for me.

On a less fictional note, I've always admired Kennedy's Moon Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z1DidldxUo

Martin Luther Kings' final speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8

Robert Kennedy's announcement of King's Assassination: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6mxL2cqxrA

Winston Churchill's We Will Fight Them on the Beaches speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IHadByMvXk

William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeTkT5-w5RA

[kelby_lake]

From 'The Merchant of Venice':

SHYLOCK:Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
'Shylock, we would have moneys:' you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit
What should I say to you? Should I not say
'Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;
'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys'?










Oh, I forgot the most obvious one!:

SHYLOCK:To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

[prendrelemick]

On a gentler note, Rudyard Kipling's "If" fits the bill.


IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!