Speeches That Changed the World

Simon Sebag Montefiore read history at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. He is the author of Potemkin: Prince of Princes and the award-winning Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. He lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children.

Introduction. Jesus of Nazareth: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit'. The Prophet Mohammed: 'Turn then your face towards the Sacred Mosque'. Queen Elizabeth I: 'I have the heart of the stomach of a king'. King Charles I: 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown'. Oliver Cromwell: 'In the name of God, go!'. George Washington: 'A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils'. Thomas Jefferson: 'We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists'. Napoleon Bonaparte: 'Soldiers of my Old Guard: I bid you farewell'. Abraham Lincoln: 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people'. Susan B. Anthony: 'Are women persons?'. Emmeline Pankhurst: 'I am here as a soldier'. Patrick Pearse: 'Ireland unfree shall never be at peace'. Woodrow Wilson: 'The world must be made safe for democracy'. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: 'Power to the Soviets'. Clarence Darrow: 'I believe in the law of love'. Mohandas K. Gandhi: 'I have faith in the righteousness of our cause'. Franklin D. Roosevelt: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'; 'A date which will live in infamy'. Adolf Hitler: 'My patience is now at an end'; 'I am from now on just first soldier of the Reich'. Neville Chamberlain: 'Peace for our time'. Joseph Stalin: 'It is imperative that we agree to conclude the pact'. Winston Churchill: 'Blood, toil, tears and sweat'; 'We shall fight on the beaches'; 'This was their finest hour'; Never in the field of human conflict'; 'An iron curtain has descended'. Charles de Gaulle: 'The flame of French resistance must not and shall not die'. Vyacheslav Molotov: 'Perfidy unparalleled in the history of civilized nation'. George S. Patton, Jr: 'I am personally going to shoot that paper-hanging sonofabitch Hitler'. Emperor Hirohito: 'Enduring the unendurable'. J. Robert Oppenheimer: 'We are not only scientists; we are men, too'. Jawaharlal Nehru: 'At the stroke of the midnight hour... India will awake'. Douglas MacArthur: 'I have just left your fighting sons in Korea'. Nikita Khrushchev: 'The cult of the individual'. John F. Kennedy: 'Ask not what your country can do for you'; 'Ich bin ein Berliner'. Martin Luther King, Jr: 'I have a dream'; 'I've seen the promised land'. Nelson Mandela: 'An ideal for which I am prepared to die'; 'Free at last'. Malcolm X: 'You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree'. Pierre Trudeau: 'Who are the kidnap victims?'. Richard Nixon: 'There can be no whitewash at the White House'. Indira Gandhi: 'The special responsibility of the women of India'. Chaim Herzog: 'Hate, ignorance and evil'. Anwar al-Sadat: 'We accept to live with you in permanent peace'. Pope John Paul II: 'Our Polish freedom costs so much'. Ronald Reagan: 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'. Mikhail Gorbachev: 'Freedom of choice is a universal principle'. Vaclav Havel: 'We live in a contaminated moral environment'. Earl Spencer: 'The most hunted person of the modern age'. Elie Wiesel: 'The perils of indifference'. George W. Bush: 'Today, our nation saw evil'. Gerry Adams: 'Our struggle has reached a defining moment'. Kevin Rudd: 'To the stolen generations... I am sorry'. Barack Obama: 'America is a place where all things are possible'. Index of speakers and key lines.