Historical Speeches Quotes

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Historical Speeches Quotes

These quotes come from some of the world's most inspirational leaders…or in some cases, just the guy with the loudest voice. Click on any historical quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. Looking for even more quotes from historical speeches? Head on over to our History Learning Guides for loads of in-depth analysis and close-readings of quotes.

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"A date which will live in infamy"

Source: Pearl Harbor Address | Speaker: Franklin D. Roosevelt

"And they brought us whole binders full of women."

Source: 2012 Presidential Debate | Speaker: Mitt Romney

"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."

Source: Inauguration Address, January 20, 1961 | Speaker: John F. Kennedy

"Be curious."

Source: Birthday Party Speech | Speaker: Stephen Hawking

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."

Source: The Dalai Lama's visit to Capitol Hill | Speaker: Dalai Lama

"Can we all get along?"

Source: Press Conference | Speaker: Rodney King

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

Source: February 5, 2008 Speech | Speaker: Barack Obama

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."

Source: Henry Ford's Marketing Team | Speaker: Henry Ford

"Do not call for Black power or green power. Call for brain power."

Source: Campus Speeches, Quoted in the Chicago Tribune | Author: Barbara Jordan

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"

Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott

"Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world."

Source: 2003 Speech | Speaker: Nelson Mandela

"Four score and seven years ago…"

Source: The Gettysburg Address | Author: Abraham Lincoln

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

Source: Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 20, 1775 | Speaker: Patrick Henry

"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."

Source: Unknown | Speaker: Dalai Lama

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Source: Stanford Commencement Speech (2005) | Speaker: Steve Jobs

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Source: McCarthy Hearings | Speaker: Joseph Welch

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

Source: Misquoted | Speaker: Winston Churchill

"Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."

Source: A Republican Rally in Baltimore, Maryland | Speaker: Jesse Owens

"I am not a crook"

Source: Televised Press Conference | Speaker: Richard Nixon

"I am not afraid; I was born to do this."

Source: Spoken as she left the town of Vancouleurs | Speaker: Joan of Arc

"I am the greatest!"

Source: Spoken | Speaker: Muhammad Ali

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Source: Televised Press Conference | Speaker: Bill Clinton

"I have not yet begun to fight."

Source: Spoken on September 23, 1779 | Speaker: Captain John Paul Jones

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Source: Spoken before his death | Speaker: Nathan Hale

"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters—two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women—playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."

Source: 2016 Democratic National Convention Speech | Speaker: Michelle Obama

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light."

Source: Question and Answer Session | Speaker: Helen Keller

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."

Source: 1965 Speech | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher

"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

Source: BBC Radio Broadcast | Speaker: Winston Churchill

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

Source: Unknown | Speaker: Ella Fitzgerald

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

Source: Trade Mart speech (undelivered) | Speaker: John F. Kennedy

"Mankind must put an end to war—or war will put an end to mankind."

Source: Address to the UN General Assembly (1961) | Speaker: John F. Kennedy

"No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent."

Source: The annual convention of the California State Suffrage Association | Speaker: Susan B. Anthony

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Source: 1965 TV Broadcast | Speaker: J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die."

Source: Speech to the 23rd Republican National Convention (June 1944) | Speaker: Herbert Hoover

"Our long national nightmare is over."

Source: Inaugural Address, September 9, 1974 | Speaker: President Gerald Ford

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

Source: Problems of War and Strategy | Speaker: Mao Zedong

"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Source: 1988 Vice Presidential Debate | Speaker: Lloyd Bentsen

"Tear down this wall!"

Source: Spoken on June 12, 1987 | Speaker: Ronald Reagan

"That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Source: The Gettysburg Address | Author: Abraham Lincoln

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Source: March from Selma, 1965 | Speaker: Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The British are coming!"

Source: Spoken on April 18, 1775 | Speaker: Paul Revere

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Source: FDR's Inauguration Speech | Speaker: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"

Source: Spoken on May 13, 1935 | Speaker: Josef Stalin

"The President—whoever he is—has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody."

Source: Farewell Address (1953) | Speaker: Harry S. Truman

"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall."

Source: Libération | Speaker: Che Guevara

"There is no such thing [as society]!"

Source: Interview with Woman's Own magazine in 1987 | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher

"There you go again."

Source: Presidential debate on on October 28, 1980 | Speaker: Ronald Reagan

"Things don't happen, they are made to happen."

Source: University of North Dakota Address | Speaker: John F. Kennedy

"Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner.""

Source: Ich bin ein Berliner Speech | Speaker: John F. Kennedy

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

Source: Speech to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta (1864) | Speaker: William Tecumseh Sherman

"We are not makers of history; we are made by history."

Source: Strength to Love | Author: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us."

Source: Speech at the Audubon Ballroom | Speaker: Malcolm X

"We have met the enemy and they are ours."

Source: Letter to William Henry Harrison | Author: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

"We must guard against […] unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Source: Eisenhower's Farewell Address | Speaker: Dwight Eisenhower

"We shall never surrender."

Source: We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech (June 1940) | Speaker: Winston Churchill

"We've got to fight until we overcome."

Source: Ballot or the Bullet | Speaker: Malcolm X

"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."

Source: Spoken at Packers' Training Camp | Speaker: Vince Lombardi