Speech Quotes - page 69
You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing speaking at the UN. And it's a really good question. I've been asking myself the same thing. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I've seen - and given the chance - I feel it is my responsibility to say something. Statesman Edmund Burke said: "All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”
In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I've told myself firmly - if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope that those words might be helpful.
Emma Watson
Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.
William Butler Yeats
(Recalling her speech at an AMFAR event that was intended to be a parody of Sharon Stone's earlier speech, reciting the lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine".) Ladies and gentlemen, I am so honored to be here and Sharon spoke so eloquently before that it reminded me of something I once read a long time ago. You ain't nothin but a hound dog. Oh, gosh, that reminds me, many years ago I was walking down the street in Memphis and I said, "Whoa- that's Elvis"...and I fucked him. I fucked him hard. I did, I did. Sure, he called me 'Cilla the whole time, but I didn't mind. (sobbing) Cryin' all the time, well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine.
Kathy Griffin
American farmers fought the ‘protective tariff' from 1800 to 1896 ... Even as late as 1933, when Garet Garrett and I drove all over the Midwest, the farmers in general were not wanting AAA or any other federal interference. In Kansas I met a rabble‐rousing New Dealer from Washington who took me to a farmers' meeting where he spoke with real conviction and eloquence. The audience listened absolutely noncommittal, until he worked up to an incandescent peroration: ‘We went down there to Washington and got you all a Ford. Now we're going to get you a Cadillac!' The temperature suddenly fell below freezing; the silent antagonism was colder than zero. That ended the speech; the whole audience rose and went out. The orator later said to me, ‘Those damned numbskulls! The only thing to use on them is a club!'
Rose Wilder Lane
The first council of war was a strange business to Joseph. He had only this to say to his people: "I have tried to save you from suffering and sorrow. Resistance means all of that. We are few. They are many. You can see all we have at a glance. They have food and ammunition in abundance. We must suffer great hardship and loss." After this speech, he quietly began his plans for the defense.
Chief Joseph
In my first speech in 1996 I said we were in danger of being swamped by Asians. This was not said out of disrespect for Asians but was meant as a slap in the face to both the Liberal and Labor governments who opened the floodgates to immigration, targeting cultures purely for the vote, as expressed by former Labor minister Barry Jones - to such an extent that society changed too rapidly due to migrants coming in the front door but also the back door, via New Zealand.
Pauline Hanson
Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport,
Straight to the question, with no figures of speech
Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without
The shrewd dry humor natural to the man
His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while,
Between the pauses of his argument,
To hear the thunder of the wrath of God
Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud.
And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen
Against the background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear.
Abraham Davenport
Well, I want him to answer the following question: Where in my speech was there any reference to anything that would jeopardise the rights of Albanians? So I'm quoting this to him. "In this area there should be a policy of national equality of rights, a spirit of tolerance should prevail. Everything that characterises a humane, democratic society.”.
Slobodan Milošević
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
Robert H. Jackson
Lucy Parsons never stopped working for the revolution to end the oppressive capitalist system. It could come only through a well-organized workers' movement, she said, which would take over the factories, all the means of production. Repeatedly imprisoned for her work, she saw free speech as crucial...Lucy was a warrior woman of unlimited courage and commitment.
Elizabeth Martinez
The answer to hate words is not speech codes but strong protest and educational efforts when we hear them. Don't ban bigoted language, but let those who use it know what to expect-severe public criticism, spontaneous demonstrations and why. This may be the liberal American Civil Liberties Union position; so be it, for history shows that limits on one person's freedom of speech make it a non-freedom for others. In failing to take this stand, progressives and leftists also aid the PC-baiters by giving them the moral high ground of being "anti-censorship."
Elizabeth Martinez
The whole point of art, for me, is to give us tools to explore feelings or situations or dilemmas that defeat our other ways of making meaning. When a situation is so vertiginous, so ethically complex, so emotionally fraught, that I feel like I'm staring into an abyss-that's when I feel moved to make art, when I feel I need the peculiar tools of fiction to figure out what I think. I mean, to inhabit my bewilderment. I think art is the realm in which we can give full rein to the ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt that we often feel we have to suppress in other kinds of expression-in our political speech, say. I think an ability to dwell in ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt is a central virtue of humanness. I think it's crucial to any thinking that might adequately capture the complexity of reality.
Garth Greenwell
Indeed, as is almost always true for MSNBC, all of these pleas that they correct their false claim have been steadfastly ignored - no correction issued - because, as I've repeatedly documented, lying about adversaries of the Democratic establishment is not merely tolerated or permitted at MSNBC, but is encouraged and rewarded. That's why they purposely had the very first person to comment on Sanders's kickoff campaign speech be a paid Clinton 2016 campaign official highly embittered toward Sanders, and it's why MSNBC does not correct lies no matter how loudly, clearly, or indisputably you document those lies to them.
Glenn Greenwald
Democracy is practiced within the ranks of the people, who enjoy the rights of freedom of speech, assembly, association and so on. The right to vote belongs only to the people, not to the reactionaries. The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries, is the people's democratic dictatorship.
Mao Zedong
Figure to yourself the mixture of surprise and delight which has this instant been poured into my mind by the sound of my name, as uttered by you, in the speech just read to me out of the Morning Herald... By one and the same man, not only Parliamentary Reform, but Law Reform advocated. Advocated? and by what man? By one who, in the vulgar sense of profit and loss, has nothing to gain by it... Yes, only from Ireland could such self-sacrifice come; nowhere else: least of all in England, cold, selfish, priest-ridden, lawyer-ridden, lord-ridden, squire-ridden, soldier-ridden England, could any approach to it be found.
Jeremy Bentham
Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something totally distinct from their own, as formerly they used to describe the languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering of birds than the articulate speech of men. The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.
And even to us at home, a wider view of the religious life of the world may teach many a useful lesson.
Max Müller
