Thanks for the comment. Please allow me to respond to it.

I encourage you to dig a little deeper into the introduction to the post and the history of oratory in general. Under “How did we compile this list?” we listed 3 criteria for a speech’s inclusion. One of which was:

“Substance: A speech may be flowery and charismatically presented, and yet lack any true substance at all. Great oratory must center on a worthy theme; it must appeal to and inspire the audience’s finest values and ideals.”

This is the definition of oratory as the ancient Greeks defined it. I don’t believe that Hitler or the Ayatolla Khomeni meet this criteria. Do you?

The list is also victor-centric because of the above criteria and because the right side often came out on top. This is also why many entries in the list probably confirmed your already existing opinions. I don’t believe in adding diversity simply because going outside the box makes the list seem smarter and edgier. Sometimes the best stuff did come from America, and it’s okay to admit this. This is especially true as it concerns oratory because the tradition of oratory is largely a Western tradition-great speeches come out of democracies because of the right to free speech and the fact that citizens and politicians can use the form to persuade others to their point of view. For more information on oratory check out this post:

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/07/17/resurrecting-the-lost-art-of-oratory/

ALSO, I think the list is a bit American-centric. And a bit victor-centric (with the exception of Chief Joseph, which was a brilliant selection). Surely there must have been some great speeches by Chinese and Muslim leaders. One poster mentioned Hitler – sure he was a real jerk, but wasn’t he supposedly a great orator? What about the Ayatolla Khomeni? Was he a good speaker? I don’t know.

Brett & Kate, I challenge you both to dig a little deeper. This is a great endeavor, and I thank you. But I think it can be better. I’d like to learn some new stuff rather than have my opinions reaffirmed.

I’m not joking when I say that this list needs to be updated to include Stephen Colbert’s keynote address at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner.

He may be a comedian, but that speech was pivotal, and righteous.

As far as presidential speeches go, however, I don’t think anything can top the way that Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address just flows like a river. It’s a beautiful piece of oratory history.

“Thanks!”

Kyrie,

It is Zeus’ anathema on our epoch and the heresy of our economic method and policies that we should agonize the Skylla of nomismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia.

It is not my idiosyncracy to be ironic or sarcastic but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize nomismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies should be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between economic strategic and philanthropic scopes.

In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological, but this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists.

Nomismatic symmetry should not antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and nomismatic archons is basic.

Parallel to this we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and nomismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political end economic barometer are halcyonic.

The history of our didimus organization on this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies.

Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism one or two themes with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and nomismatic policies.

I apologize for having tyranized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous aytochtons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you Kyrie, the stenographers.