Gems from the Top 100 Speeches

Public speaking is one of the things many fear the most. This fear is justified—Many eyes to look into and many minds to contend with. Thoughts are elusive. The catcher of powerful thoughts—the apt words—are even more elusive. Yet, you do not need to despair. By standing on the shoulders of great orators, you can also speak with facility, felicity, cogency, and potency. Great orators have produced immortal thoughts couched in immortal words. This book selects the gems and the most versatile phrases in the top 100 speeches in the history of American rhetoric of the last century, so that you do not have to tire your mind and tax your time spending months going through all these speeches to mine the diamonds of powerful thoughts and felicitous words. This book furnishes you with powerful and ready blocks for the efficient construction of edifices of powerful ideas embodied in powerful words.

The top 100 speeches are the most significant American political speeches of the 20th century, according to 137 leading scholars of American public address. Their inclusion and ranking are based on their “social and political impact,” “rhetorical artistry,” “eloquence,” and “power.”