Martin Luther King, Jr.,
August 28, 1963

I Have a Dream

at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower,
January 17, 1961

Farewell Address

Radio and Television
First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunities they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening. Three days from now, after half century in the service of our country,

Barack Obama,
January 16, 2007

Announces Presidential Exploratory Committee

Television
As many of you know, over the last few months I've been thinking hard about my plans for 2008. Running for the presidency is a profound decision -- a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone -- and so before I committed myself and my family to this race, I wanted to be sure that this was right for us and, more importantly, right for the country.

speechpedia spotlighted:

Edsger Dijkstra's Convocation Speech Edsger Dijkstra, 1996/12/08

On December 8, 1996 Professor Edsger Dijkstra addressed the graduates of the College of Natural Sciences of the University of Texas at Austin. This is the text of his speech.

Terry Pratchett's Alzheimer's Speech Terry Pratchett, 2008/08/13

Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Terry Pratchett, author of a series of inexplicably successful fantasy books and I have had Alzheimer’s now for the past two years plus, in which time I managed to write a couple of bestsellers. I have a rare variant. I don’t understand very much about it, but apparently if you are going to have Alzheimer’s it’s a good one to have.

Commencement Address at Vassar College Tom Hanks, 2005/05/22

Tom Hanks Thank you. Thank you, Fran, for that introduction. As Milton's wife said to Milton of Milton's Paradise Lost, "Seems a little long to me, but I liked it." Not long ago I was reading about the problem of gridlock on the freeways of Southern California --the -- the traffic jams which cripple the city, stranding millions and laying waste to time and energy and the environment. Gridlock is as serious and as impenetrable a problem as any we face, a dilemma without cure, without solution, like everything else in the world it seems.

Commencement Address at Stanford University Steve Jobs, 2005/06/12

Steve Jobs I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on Git at Google Linus Torvalds, 2007/05/14

Thank you, for coming everybody, some of you probably already have heard of Linus Torvalds, those of you who haven't, you are the people with Macintoshes on your laps. He is a guy who delights being cruel to people. His latest cruelty is to create a revision control system which is explicitly designed to make you feel less intelligent than you thought you were.