Great orators and speeches

[Diuretic]

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/sh...82&postcount=8

anastrophe in the above post stated that Bill Clinton was "one of the most gifted orators of the 20th century, second only to kennedy in my opinion."

Was he? Was Kennedy a great orator? What makes a great orator anyway? Is it their words or their delivery or a combination? Do some speeches look good on paper and are lifeless when delivered by someone without the skills? Or are some speeches just written so well that even Mickey Mouse could have the audience on its feet?

For mine the greatest orator in the English-speaking world was Dr Martin Luther King. I still can't listen to his "I Have a Dream" speech without goosebumps.

Who do you think is the 20th century's greatest orator?

Perhaps it was Vince Lombardi? (That's a serious nomination by the way).

[Ocnbrz]

I think the charisma of the speaker plays a big part. Without some emotion behind the words they just don't seem to have the same impact for me. Clinton and Kennedy could really inspire those that heard their speeches. Winston Churchill springs to mind as well. Not sure I could pick just one as being the best. They all held our attention in their own time.

[spot]

Kennedy sometimes rattled through his speeches so fast that it was hard work keeping up, but well worth making the effort and yes some of his speeches were magnificent oration. The late John Smith, who would have been Prime Minister here instead of Tony Blair had he not died, was like that as well, and he held his audience spellbound on a good day. The principled but equally dead Robin Cook spoke better than most too.

The best speakers in Britain today are John Bercow and David Trimble, either of whom would be perfect leaders of the next Conservative administration but neither of whom will be.

You need an audience prepared to be won and a subject capable of arousing them and a history that resonates. Nelson Mandela is high on the list and (loathe him as you may) George Galloway. Great skills of oratory are not necessarily a guide to whom to elect - Adolf Hitler has surely to be counted the greatest orator of the 20th century and look what he did with it.

[Clint]

Good orators don’t always deliver good speeches and good speeches don’t make good orators. The most arousing speeches come from the heart of the speaker. Words on paper charismatically delivered as a speech are just words from a paper.

President Clinton can take just about anything put on paper and make it sound good…even believable… but not necessarily soul stirring. His most recent outbursts were the most passionate I can recall. Too bad he only gets that way when he is defending himself.

President Bush gave a soul stirring and arousing speech at ground zero because (I’m sure) it came from every fiber of his being. He could repeat it but it would only be words from paper with a fraction of the original spirit and never be as inspiring.

[caesar777]

I'm with spot on this, Adolf Hitler was without a doubt the greatest orator of the 20th century. Loathe him as I do there is no doubt that he had a power over his audience and managed to get a great deal of support for his hideous policies.

[chonsigirl]

Cicero was one of the best in history..................

[Bez]

Most great speakers are 'of their time' so i guess i would say :

Winston Churchill for inspiration and motivation - WW11

I personally liked to listen to Bill Clinton - can't comment on the content though

Tony Blairs speech to parliament before we went to 'war' with Iraq....convinced me anyway

Martin Luther King - memorable and inspirational

Passionate and scary.- 'Rivers of Blood' speech by Enoch Powell http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/powell_press.htm

I'll give this some more thought

Beautiful voices to listen to :

Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton ....and they can / could tell a tale or two.

[Seleucus_I_Nicator]

Oratory as an art form was said to have been established Corax and Tisias of Syracuse in the fifth century BCE. (Most likely under the artistic effervescence during the Deinomenid-Emmanid Dynasty of Syracuse from 485-466 BCE, especially under Gelon I, King of Gela and Syracuse, and the established equipollence or balance of powers after the defeat of the Carthaginians at the battle of Himera: 480 BCE) According to Aristotle in his Rhetoric, oratory is seen as a geniune branch of reasoning, or the "observing of all the available means of persuasion.", whilst Plato maintained that the path of the orator is to speak no ill, not to spur forth mendacity but rather to embrace and profess the truth in all affairs. (Plato, Phaedrus, 260 D, 3ff) (Reference): Marcus Tullius Cicero's "On the Good Life: On the Orator".

Plato, however, differentiated between a philosophical form of oratory that aimed at revealing the truth in certain matters and disavowing aims of mendacity and perfidy. Plato vehemently scorned sophistry as a form of oratory claiming that sophists obfuscated the truth with flosculation and only benefited themselves. In Plato's Menexenus, in a Socratic Dialogue, he decries the dispositions of Pericles, Princeps of Athens. It is because of Pericles that the Grecian oecumene underwent fratricide, strife, war and terror as during the Peloponnesian War: 431-404 BCE. It was because of Pericles, as written in the Menexenus, that led to the rise of the First Athenian Empire: 478-404 BCE and repressed freedom and liberty as factions tore asunder at the very fabric of democracy as established by Cleisthenes and Solon. It can be said that such an action could have led to a dichotomy within the Grecian world: the Lacedaemonian Confederation and the Athenian Hegemony (first symmachia under the Delian League and then exercising suzerainty over the Aegean Sea, coastlines in Anatolia, Thessaly, Corcyra, Zacynthus, Cephallenia, etc. Other neighboring states were Epirus such as under the tribes of the Chaeonians, Thresprotians and Molossians, Macedonia, the Thracians with city-states of Perinthus, Selymbria and Byzantium under local hegemony and spheres of influence, led to a dense conglomerate of factions which entailed 1. loss of the polis as the cultural and political seat of power to confederacies, autarchies, and larger political states, such as in the Hellenistic Age of the Chremonidean League, the Aetolian Confederation, and the Achaean League as under Philopoemon.)
Pericles was, however, persuasive in order to fulfill his own ends as recorded by Thucydides in his "History of the Peloponnesian War". Pericles called for the "Periclean Grand Strategy", or an offensive by sea as Athens was a thalassocracy, defensive by land or a form of asymmetrical warfare, and continual foreign trade, or mercantilism to fill in the state coffers that solely benefited the polis of Athens.

Another great oratorical passage in terms of persuasion (sophistry) rather than Plato's emendation that the incitamentum of true oratory is to profess the truth in matters, was Catiline (Lucius Sergius Catilina) as recorded by Sallust in his "Catilinarian Conspiracy". (Other works of Sallust were the "Jugurthine War" and the "Histories".) Catiline professed "...Our struggle is for the fatherland, for freedom, for life; theirs is a superfluous fight, for the power of a few...".

Another great orator was Marcus Tullius Cicero who in his Philippic Orations (based on the Demosthenic Model) railed against Mark Antony and his despotic passions and cruelty. Just as Demosthenes opposed Philip II of Macedonia during the period of the Second Athenian "Empire": 378/377-355 BCE (created by Thrasybulus after the fall of the First Athenian "Empire" with the ousting of the Lacedaemonian oligarchs.), so did Marcus Tullius Cicero rally the Senatorial forces against Mark Antony and his encroachments on the Roman Republic.

[Lon]

Politics aside, Ronald Reagan was no slouch when it came to Public Speaking skills.
For those old enough to remember his days before politics when he hosted and narrated the General Electric Program on black and white TV. His hosting of that show was one of the things that helped create interest in him as a political candidate.

[chonsigirl]

Another great orator was Marcus Tullius Cicero who in his Philippic Orations (based on the Demosthenic Model) railed against Mark Antony and his despotic passions and cruelty. Just as Demosthenes opposed Philip II of Macedonia during the period of the Second Athenian "Empire": 378/377-355 BCE (created by Thrasybulus after the fall of the First Athenian "Empire" with the ousting of the Lacedaemonian oligarchs.), so did Marcus Tullius Cicero rally the Senatorial forces against Mark Antony and his encroachments on the Roman Republic.

Cicero is a great orator, still a pip to read after all these years, one of my favorites.