It can be from anyone, it can be about anything and it can be from anytime so anything to a quote from a famous philosopher to something you heard on the radio. Even though I wasn't alive I'll proberly remember this: A quote from Neil Kinnock's speech from the Labour party conference in 1985: I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay. I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford. I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend; more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. - I warn you not to be ordinary - I warn you not to be young - I warn you not to fall ill - I warn you not to get old.
There are several, but I'll quote this one: [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw[/YOUTUBE]
I'll always remember this one: -The Paradoxical Commandments This one has also stayed with me for a long time: -maverick, someone who used to be active on this very forum
My favorite quote is 'All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be', which is a line from the Pink Floyd song 'Breathe in the Air'. That song quite possibly has my favorite lyrics of any song ever, they're so profound. 'Breathe, breathe in the air don't be afraid to care leave, but don't leave me look around, choose your own ground For long you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be Run, rabbit run dig that hole, forget the sun and when at last the work is down don't sit down, it's time to dig another one For long you live and high you fly but only if you ride the tide and balanced on the biggest wave you race towards an early grave'
Sarah Kay is a really enchanting poet who writes spoken word poems. She performs two of them here, and talks about her workshop programme for youth. Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com
Jon Steward on Gays adopting: "I think a loving gay couple, with a financially secure background, beats the hell outta Britney Spears and Kevin Federline any day of the week."
I have a bunch of them but this is my favorite... [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNxoLJy3m3s&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]
This speech from the Watchmen sticks out in my mind: This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No." They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father or President Truman. Decent men who believed in a day's work for a day's pay. Instead they followed the droppings of lechers and communists and didn't realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don't tell me they didn't have a choice. Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody Hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers... and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say.
“I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they’ll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects … I hope that every professional gay will say ‘enough’, come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.” Harvey Milk, 1978
"Hey, girls, you're beautiful. Don't look at those stupid magazines with sticklike models. Eat healthy and exercise. That's all. Don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough. You're good enough, you are too good. Love your family with all your heart and listen to it. You are gorgeous, whether you're a size 4 or 14. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, as long as you're a good person, as long as you respect others. I know it's been told hundreds of times before, but it's true. Hey, girls, you are beautiful." - Gerard Way "If for one minute you think you're better than a sixteen year old girl in a Green Day t-shirt, you are sorely mistaken. Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about." - Gerard Way "Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person. " - Gerard Way "Suicide is a serious thing. And if you know anyone who is suicidal, you need to get them help. No one should be in pain. Everyone should love themselves. Like I love you all." - Gerard Way "The Devil got landed with a shitty job, he has to deal with assholes everyday, he's probably bored as hell." - Gerard Way "Be yourself, don't take anyone's shit, and never let them take you alive" - Gerard Way "Oh how wrong we were to think immortality meant never dying" - Gerard Way "no matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith" - Gerard Way "It erases everything I hate about myself. Nothing can hurt me. I feel completely invincible. I feel like everyone else on that stage is invincible and we're capable of anything. There's no stopping us." - Gerard Way "Life moves fast, run faster" - Frank Iero
The speech from Serenity: "Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave." Sam's speech from Lord of the Rings: the Two Toweres: "Sam: It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for." jeez. just reading that second one brought tears to my eyes.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back. Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it. -King Lear, Act IV, Scene 6
Copied from my profile in some site: "There's no such thing as coincidence; there is only inevitability"-Yuuko, Witch of Dimensions, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles "If you don't trouble the rest of the world, there's no harm in being abnormal..."-Yuuko Ichihara "Embrace your dreams. And, whatever happens, protect your honor as SOLDIER." - Zack Fair "Love is rare, life is strange, nothing lasts, people change."- Kaito Aoi Shion "Trust me, if you need a tutor, get one with swords."- Generator Rex "Roses are red, Nuts are brown, Skirts goup, Pants go down, Body to body, Skin to skin, When it is stiff, Stick it in, The longer it's in, The stronger it gets, It goes in dry, Comes out wet, It comes out dripping, And it starts to sag, Its not what you think... It's a teaba**g"-Len Tanimoto-Leonard "i love walking in the rain.. cause no one knows i'm crying.." -Charlie Chaplin "A wish is no idle matter. For every beam of hope you pray for, a shadow of despair is cast."-Kyouko, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
I Am Become Death - J. Robert Oppenheimer Wasn't alive for it, of course, but it's still ingrained into my memory forever.
I really should read that play. This isn't exactly a speech, but I love this dialogue from Hamlet, Act IV, Scene III: "KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? HAMLET At supper. KING CLAUDIUS At supper! where? HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end. KING CLAUDIUS Alas, alas! HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar."
"Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." ~ T.E. Lawrence "Yesterday is history; Tomorrow is a mystery; But today is a gift, that's why it's called the present." ~ Joan Rivers