5 Great Speeches

For when the vibe is inspiring, historical, and intellectual.

President Trump gave many speeches on inauguration day, but his official inaugural address was one of the best he’s ever delivered. He did not pull any punches in talking about the administration he was replacing, nor did he shy away from insulting almost every person in the room (including every single former president in attendance) when talking about how the American government had been failing its people for so many years. This part of the speech, while on brand for Trump, also set a courageous tone that carried through the rest of the address. He called for actions that will make immediate, positive, and tangible impacts in the day-to-day lives of Americans, like cracking down on immigration and crime and reinvigorating the economy. He also announced plans to reestablish a national sense of exceptionalism, achievement, and exploration, like retaking the Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and sending a manned mission to Mars. Like visiting the NASA Museum in Houston, strolling down the National Mall, or visiting American embassies and military installations abroad, this speech evoked patriotism, pride, and optimism in a way that hasn’t been replicated in a very long time.

There’s something really special, almost magical, about a great speech. George Washington’s farewell address was so predictive about the trajectory of American politics in both the short term (the Civil War broke out 65 year later), and in the long term (the words still have meaning 250 years later in the context of the 2025 political scene). Winston Churchill’s speech following the evacuation of Dunkirk was so full of evocative imagery and rousing sentiments that it drives me to tears every time I read or listen to it (I’m not exaggerating for effect, I really do shed tears over this speech with shocking regularity).

Most speeches function for a specific audience, under specific circumstances. Some speeches, like these, reach through time and retain a meaning so powerful that they can stir potent emotions in people generations removed, or maintain prescient insights even after hundreds of years. I am not putting President Trump’s 2025 inaugural address in the same camp as those kinds of speeches. Only time will offer the necessary perspective to tell whether that is warranted. Certainly, his speech shares many similarities to some of the greatest in history. While we wait to see how things shake out, here are five truly great speeches.

George Washington’s Farewell Address

The Father of America is so called, at least in part, because of the delivery of this address, which is not exactly a “speech” in the traditional sense as it was printed and distributed rather than delivered. However, it deserves to be counted on this list because it is constructed like a speech, and it birthed every farewell speech delivered by every American president who came after.

Washington’s farewell address functions as a thoughtful, comprehensive set of guiding principles for the new nation that he clearly loved and sacrificed so much for. It is a final thesis on America after a life given over to its service. The thing to remember about this speech is that there was no precedent for almost anything Washington said. As the first president, he wasn’t facing a fixed term limit that forced him out of office. He was willingly, and with great relief, stepping down to enjoy the fruits of his labor and retirement on his farm in Virginia. The opening tone of this speech is that of a loving father explaining something difficult to his children – he wasn’t stepping down out of a deficiency in love for his countrymen, rather he was stepping down because it was his time to do so. Stepping down was his final act of service. It, quite literally, established the framework for a peaceful transition of power that would be followed for more than 200 years.

In this speech he recognized the precariousness and fragility of the new nation but focused on the importance of having love for the nation which so many suffered to create. Out of this love he calls out unity of government between all peoples, regions and States as the hallmark of this love and the Constitution, which was so thoroughly thought out, as the reliable, cherished, and beloved guide for maintaining unity. He urges the country to protect it and decries what he sees as threats to unity: political parties, which enable despotism and foreign intervention, and immorality, which is antithetical to the functioning of a free society. These sentiments could be repackaged and redelivered today and still carry the same meaning and weight today.

He also lets his countrymen know that some taxes, while uncomfortable, are necessary, and recommends dealing with other nations honestly without over dedicating resources and attentions, whether favorable or not, to them. He suggests that America leverage its physical isolation in this regard and cites a contemporary war in which an ally was embroiled as an example of staying out of global politics so long as it can be helped.

These insights are well-thought-out and expertly articulated, but what really sets this speech apart is Washington’s humble recognition that people are going to do what they’re going to do (and haven’t we just). Couched by his personal relief and excitement at the prospect of retiring as one of the citizens he is addressing, his hope that his words will serve as a steadfast guide rings out as exceptionally genuine.

Forgive him his faults, as they were rendered in faithful service. In the end he is just a man.

John F. Kennedy’s, “We choose to go to the Moon” Speech

One of the hallmarks of the Kennedy presidency was his exceptional speeches. His inaugural address, in which he vows to, “support any friend” is perhaps his most famous. However, I would say that this is the ‘greater’ of the two. Kennedy’s inaugural address focuses solely on foreign matters, when he should be addressing US citizens first and foremost. While the country was preeminently concerned with a strong, adversarial, nuclear-armed Soviet Union, all of Kennedy’s promises in the eloquent address were to other nations around the world. It was reflective of the burgeoning strategy of liberal globalism that would define American foreign policy for decades to come.

In his, “to the Moon” speech, which was delivered at Rice University in Houston, a nexus of American scientific ingenuity in the field of space exploration, Kennedy focuses on the reasons for aggressively advancing America’s position in the “Space Race” with the Soviets. While he does address Soviet competition and the altruistic promotion of liberal ideals, this speech focuses on the most important imperative for sending a mean to the moon which is simply: because we can.

Kennedy, very famously says, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

There are periods in history through which people struggle, and survival is of paramount concern. Kennedy makes it clear in this speech that we are not living through one of those times. We can, instead, turn the ingenuity and courage of the human spirit toward loftier goals – indeed the loftiest goal, the heavens. He invokes the famous British explorer George Mallory historic climb up Mt. Everest by saying that, “…space is there, and we’re going to climb it….” This profound expression, that Americans will achieve what would have been considered impossible just years earlier, that we would do it in the face of great competition, and that we would do it first and better and because we could, defined American exceptionalism for a new era.

It is to the legacy immortalized in this speech that 21st century America ties its identity.

Ronald Reagan’s Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate

President Reagan begins this famous speech, during which he urges Soviet leader President Gorbachev to, “tear down this wall,” in a clever way. Delivering the speech at near the Berlin Wall, he proclaims himself as the leader of the free world, subtly connecting freedom to this place where there’s a clear physical representation of an unnatural divide between free people and restricted people, and asserts that those two peoples are really one and can be, should be, unified under the banner of freedom. He also addresses the protraction of this divide by pointing to the history of leaders in his very position coming to make similar remarks in Berlin over the course of four decades. The message is clear: now is the time to end the divide.

Essential to this message of unity, he is both physically and rhetorically addressing all Germans, not just those on the Western side of the wall. It is to the East Germans that he addresses the majority of his speech. He describes the morbid situation posed by the Berlin Wall before talking about the global rebuilding campaigns and the economic prosperity seen by those nations that chose to accept American aide post-war.

This speech speaks to what had become the victory of West over East, of capitalism over communism. While most people don’t concern themselves with complicated political theory, they do concern themselves with the pain of empty bellies that economic hardship can bring. Economic prosperity – or lack thereof – is a powerful political motivator. In America today, democratic elections hinge almost entirely on the state of the economy. Abroad, revolutions are waged and then relinquished on the success or failure of economies. The Germans on the Eastern side of the wall would have understood this far too well. As a leader of a democratic nation, and of the free world, Reagan is positioned better than anyone to leverage the power of the economy in raising or sinking political ships.

This speech represents a shift in the nature of the Cold War, one that had been long in the making. Through the 1980s, the Cold War had been fought as a war, as a series of proxy battles and intelligence operations and arms proliferation backed and fueled by profound ideological differences. By this point, however, the truest metrics of success and failure were abundantly clear. Political and economic freedom proved itself to be the better system for the most people. So, the Cold War had turned into a high-stakes marketing campaign for the US. And Ronald Reagan was one hell of a brand ambassador.

The speech itself is clunky in places (why do American presidents insist on speaking German in Berlin?), but there are absolute gems of truth scattered all throughout the speech:

“East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty.”

“Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.”

“The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.”

In the end, Reagan gives some specific examples of both economic and cultural revitalization that the US would bring to bear in East Germany, and makes a very good case for tearing down that wall.

George Patton’s Address to the Third Army

“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser…. The very thought of losing is hateful to America.” That is the patriotic, unflinching, dedicated tone of this great speech delivered by one of the greatest warfighters in history.

This speech is more vulgar by far than the others on this list. It is vulgar even by modern standards. It’s violent and gory. It’s also more targeted than the other speeches on this list. Rather than a missive to American citizens or a message to her enemies, it is exclusively meant for the warriors of the Third Army on the eve of the Allied invasion of Europe, which was to be the largest amphibious assault in history. Amphibious assaults are notoriously difficult and deadly for the men undertaking them. Those were the men Patton was speaking to. These men were not battle weary or battle tested. They were young. They knew that they were meeting a fearsome defensive force in entering Fortress Europe. Patton’s purpose with this speech was simple: motivate these men to do what needed to be done, motivate them past the fear of death or mutilation, motivate them to be brutal and vicious toward their enemy, and motivate them to win.

He employs a couple different techniques to do this. First, he appeals to their masculinity and a sort of Spartan sense of patriotism. Second, he gives visceral examples of the heroism he expects from the men he’s speaking to. Third, he relates to them one soldier to another – he doesn’t talk down to them as a general officer to enlisted men, but he speaks to them as one warrior to another. Anyone who’s served in the military knows how rare and powerful this can be.

While the scope of this speech is narrow, its impact on history is enormous. Patton was successful in motivating these troops to, indeed, do what needed to be done. Moreover, he motivated them to make short work of the war in Europe and set the stage for the victory of freedom over despotism in the largest, most fatal war ever fought by men. The men he gave this speech to set the course of history in the 20th century that lives on today.

Winston Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” Speech

Prime Minister Churchill begins this speech almost as a newscaster, bleakly relaying information about the military events leading up to the evacuation of Dunkirk before moving to express his relief and surprise at being able to deliver happy news about the number of troops that were saved, which was seven times greater than even the best estimation of success for the operation. He magnificently draws people in with the story that they all care about. Then, he broadens the aperture to relay the political failings that lead to operation before deftly transitioning to champion the bravery of the British citizens who toiled for days under extremely perilous conditions to achieve this miraculous rescue. He uses every opportunity to exalt the skill of his soldiers and forces, and the grit of his people. This speech, after all, is an appeal to and for allies, as much as it is an address to his nation.

Churchill weaves his plea for partnership and assistance deftly within a call to action for his people by doing a number of things all at once: he implores everyone to not consider the evacuation a victory though there might have been elements of victory in the operation, he highlights the importance of air power to victory by detailing the air battles that defined this operation, he documents how, even though they were outnumbered and out-gunned, his pilots frustrated the Germans their task of decimating the British and French forces, he makes the losses of the operation both personal and material, and he turns away from the devastation and unflinchingly toward what is coming and what must be done. In evoking these things simultaneously – tremendous peril and outstanding skill, near-demise and miraculous survival – he illustrates both why Britain is in need of aide and why they are a worthy ally and partner. He is able to masterfully depict circumstances as sufficiently dire, without being devoid of hope or courage or determination.

The speech displays extraordinary craftsmanship in this way, and effectively defines the tone of World War II that would ultimately lead to an Allied victory. While nations everywhere were crumbling and bending to totalitarian rule, Britain stood as a bulwark of freedom under the most dire circumstances imaginable. This is why Churchill is the only non-American on this list to deliver, “a great speech.”