Great Speeches of Our Time

Hywel Williams is a renowned historian, newspaper columnist, political advisor and TV presenter. He is the author of the famous political exposé Guilty Men and the massive Cassell's Chronology of World History.

Introduction. Eamon de Valera: 'It is, indeed, hard for the strong to be just to the weak' - 16 May 1945. Winston Churchill: 'An iron curtain has descended across the Continent' - 5 March 1946. George Marshall: 'Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos' - 5 June 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru: 'A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east' - 14 August 1947. David Ben-Gurion: 'This is our native land, it is not as birds of passage that we return to it' - 2 October 1947. Eleanor Roosevelt: 'The basic problem confronting the world today ... is the preservation of human freedom' - 9 December 1948. Douglas MacArthur: 'Old soldiers never die, they just fade away' - 19 April 1951. Nikita Khrushchev: 'The cult of the individual brought about rude violation of party democracy' - 25 February 1956. Aneurin Bevan: 'The government resorted to epic weapons for squalid and trivial ends' - 5 December 1956. Mao Zedong: 'Let a hundred flowers blossom. Let a hundred schools of thought contend' - 27 February 1957. Harold Macmillan: 'The wind of change is blowing through this continent' - 3 February 1960. John F. Kennedy: 'We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier' - 15 July 1960. John F. Kennedy: 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country' - 20 January 1961. John F. Kennedy: 'Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind' - 25 September 1961. Charles de Gaulle: 'There is no independence imaginable for a country that does not have its own nuclear weapon' - 15 February 1963. Martin Luther King: 'I have a dream' - 28 August 1963. Harold Wilson: 'The white heat of the technological revolution' - 1 October 1963. Nelson Mandela: 'An ideal for which I am prepared to die' - 20 April 1964. Barry Goldwater: 'Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice ... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue' - 16 July 1964. Martin Luther King Jr: 'The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit' - 4 April 1967. Julius Nyerere: 'Socialism is an attitude of mind' - 10 April 1967. Gamal Abdel Nasser: 'We are determined that the Palestine question will not be liquidated or forgiven' - 26 May 1967. Gamal Abdel Nasser: 'We are now ready to deal with the entire Palestine question' - 29 May 1967. Richard Nixon: 'North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that' - 3 November 1969. Richard Nixon: 'Mistakes, yes. But for personal gain, never' - 9 August 1974. Pierre Trudeau: 'The bringing home of our constitution marks the end of a long winter' - 17 April 1982. Neil Kinnock: 'I warn you that you will have pain' - 7 June 1983. Neil Kinnock: 'We are democratic socialists. We care all the time' - 15 May 1987. Ronald Reagan: 'Isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments' - 6 June 1984. Mario Cuomo: 'For the love of God: Please, make this nation remember how futures are built' - 16 July 1984. Jesse Jackson: 'Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint' - 18 July 1984. Richard von Weizsacker: 'Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present' - 8 May 1985. Margaret Thatcher: 'Let Europe be a family of nations ... relishing our national identity no less than our common European endeavour' - 20 September 1988. Mikhail Gorbachev: 'Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions' - 7 December 1988. Nelson Mandela: 'A rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world' - 10 May 1994. Seamus Heaney: 'The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine' - 7 December 1995. Fidel Castro: 'Socialism or death!' - 1 January 1999. Anita Roddick: 'By putting our money where our heart is ... we will mould the world into a kinder, more loving shape' - 27 November 1999. Tony Blair: 'Our policies only succeed when the realism is as clear as the idealism' - 2 October 2001. Orhan Pamuk: 'Whatever the country, freedom of thought and expression are universal human rights' - 25 April 2006. Kevin Rudd: 'As of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end' - 13 February 2008. Barack Obama: 'Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward' 6 November 2012. Index. Acknowledgements/credits.