a great speech about life

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6 Speech Examples About Life

Life is a beautiful tapestry woven with threads of joy, sorrow, triumph, and growth.

It’s a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns, where every experience shapes us into the individuals we are meant to become.

Speech Examples About Life

In moments of uncertainty or doubt, we often seek wisdom and inspiration from those who have navigated the path before us.

Through the power of speech, we can connect with others, share our stories, and ignite the spark of motivation within ourselves and those around us.

So sit back, relax, and let these heartfelt speeches about life guide you on your own extraordinary journey.

Speech 1: Embracing Change

Change is inevitable. It’s the one constant in this ever-evolving world we live in. Sometimes, change comes knocking on our door uninvited, catching us off guard and leaving us feeling unsettled. Other times, we actively seek change, driven by an insatiable desire for growth and transformation.

Regardless of how change enters our lives, it is up to us to decide how we will respond. Will we resist it, clinging desperately to the familiarity of the past? Or will we embrace it, recognizing that change is the catalyst for personal development and new opportunities?

The truth is, change can be frightening. It pushes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to confront the unknown. But it is in these moments of discomfort that we discover our true strength and resilience. By embracing change, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities and unlock our potential for greatness.

So when change comes knocking, don’t hide from it. Answer the call with courage and curiosity. Trust in your ability to adapt and grow. Embrace the journey, even when the path ahead is uncertain. For it is through change that we become the best versions of ourselves and create the lives we truly desire.

— END OF SPEECH —

Commentary: This inspirational speech encourages the audience to embrace change as a catalyst for personal growth and new opportunities. It acknowledges the fear and discomfort that often accompanies change but emphasizes the importance of facing it with courage and curiosity. This speech is suitable for audiences facing significant life transitions, such as graduations, career changes, or personal milestones.

Speech 2: The Power of Perseverance

Life is not always easy. There will be times when you feel like giving up, when the challenges before you seem insurmountable, and the road ahead appears endless. In these moments, it’s crucial to remember the power of perseverance.

Perseverance is the unwavering determination to keep moving forward, even in the face of adversity. It’s the inner strength that pushes you to take one more step, even when your legs are tired and your spirit is weary. It’s the voice inside your head that whispers, “Keep going,” when everything else is telling you to quit.

The journey to success is rarely a straight line. It’s filled with detours, obstacles, and setbacks. But it is through these challenges that we grow, learn, and become stronger. Every failure is an opportunity to learn, every setback is a chance to reassess and pivot, and every victory is a testament to your resilience and determination.

So when life gets tough, remember the power of perseverance. Embrace the challenges, learn from the setbacks, and keep pushing forward. Success is not about perfection; it’s about progress. And with perseverance as your guiding light, there is no limit to what you can achieve.

Commentary: This motivational speech highlights the importance of perseverance in the face of life’s challenges. It encourages the audience to view obstacles as opportunities for growth and to keep pushing forward, even when the road ahead seems daunting. This speech is suitable for audiences facing significant challenges or setbacks, such as students, entrepreneurs, or individuals pursuing personal goals.

Speech 3: Finding Your Purpose

In this vast and complex world, it’s easy to feel lost and uncertain about our place in it. We often find ourselves wandering through life, searching for meaning and purpose, wondering what our true calling might be.

But here’s the truth: your purpose is not some elusive, mystical concept that you must spend your entire life seeking. It’s not a hidden treasure that only a select few are lucky enough to find. Your purpose is something that already exists within you, waiting to be discovered and nurtured.

Your purpose is the unique combination of your passions, skills, and experiences. It’s the way in which you choose to make a positive impact on the world around you. It’s the legacy you leave behind through the lives you touch and the difference you make.

Finding your purpose is not always easy. It requires introspection, self-awareness, and a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone. It may involve trying new things, taking risks, and facing your fears. But the journey of self-discovery is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences you will ever have.

So take the time to explore your interests and passions. Reflect on the moments in your life when you have felt most alive and inspired. Surround yourself with people who encourage and support your growth. And trust in the journey, knowing that every step you take is bringing you closer to your true purpose.

Remember, your purpose is not a destination to be reached but a lifelong journey of self-discovery and impact. Embrace it with open arms, and watch as your life unfolds in ways you never could have imagined.

Commentary: This introspective speech encourages the audience to embark on a journey of self-discovery to find their unique purpose in life. It emphasizes that one’s purpose is not an elusive concept but rather a combination of their passions, skills, and experiences. This speech is suitable for audiences seeking direction and meaning in their lives, such as recent graduates, individuals at a career crossroads, or those experiencing a mid-life crisis.

Speech 4: The Gift of Failure

Failure. It’s a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many, a concept that we’ve been taught to avoid at all costs. From a young age, we’re conditioned to believe that failure is a sign of weakness, a mark of inadequacy, and a reflection of our worth as individuals.

But what if I told you that failure is not something to be feared but rather a gift to be embraced? What if I said that failure is not the opposite of success but a necessary step on the path towards it?

You see, failure is not the end of the story. It’s a chapter in the book of your life, a plot twist that adds depth and dimension to your journey. Failure is a teacher, a mentor, and a guide. It shows you what doesn’t work so that you can discover what does. It reveals your weaknesses so that you can strengthen them and your strengths so that you can leverage them.

Failure is not a permanent state but a temporary setback. It’s an opportunity to learn, grow, and adapt. It’s a chance to reassess your goals, your strategies, and your priorities. It’s a reminder that success is not a destination but a journey, and that every obstacle you encounter along the way is an opportunity to become a better version of yourself.

So the next time you experience failure, don’t run from it. Embrace it. Learn from it. Grow from it. Use it as a stepping stone to propel you towards your dreams. Remember that every successful person you admire has failed countless times before achieving their goals. They didn’t let failure define them; they let it refine them.

In the end, failure is not something to be ashamed of but something to be proud of. It’s a badge of honor, a testament to your courage, resilience, and determination. It’s proof that you’re willing to take risks, to step outside of your comfort zone, and to pursue your passions with every fiber of your being.

So embrace the gift of failure. Let it shape you, mold you, and transform you into the person you were always meant to become. And know that every failure brings you one step closer to the success you so deeply desire.

Commentary: This thought-provoking speech challenges the common perception of failure as something to be avoided and instead presents it as a valuable learning experience and a necessary step on the path to success. It encourages the audience to embrace failure, learn from it, and use it as a tool for personal growth and development. This speech is suitable for audiences facing setbacks or disappointments, such as entrepreneurs, athletes, or individuals pursuing ambitious goals.

Speech 5: The Beauty of Vulnerability

In a world that often equates vulnerability with weakness, it’s easy to believe that we must always project an image of strength and perfection. We hide our flaws, mask our insecurities, and present a carefully curated version of ourselves to the world, afraid that revealing our true selves will lead to judgment, rejection, or ridicule.

But what if I told you that vulnerability is not a weakness but a strength? What if I said that by embracing our vulnerabilities, we open ourselves up to deeper connections, greater empathy, and more meaningful relationships?

You see, vulnerability is the courage to be ourselves, fully and authentically, without fear of judgment or rejection. It’s the willingness to share our stories, our struggles, and our successes with others, knowing that in doing so, we create space for them to do the same. It’s the recognition that we are all imperfect beings, navigating this complex and sometimes messy journey of life together.

When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we create a bridge of understanding and compassion between ourselves and others. We invite them to see us as we truly are, flaws and all, and in doing so, we give them permission to do the same. We foster a sense of belonging, a feeling of being seen, heard, and valued for who we are, not just for what we achieve.

Vulnerability is not a sign of weakness but a mark of courage. It takes immense strength to be open and honest about our fears, our doubts, and our insecurities. It requires a willingness to step outside of our comfort zones and risk being hurt or rejected. But in doing so, we create the opportunity for growth, healing, and transformation.

So embrace your vulnerability. Share your stories, your struggles, and your triumphs with others. Be open and honest about who you are and what you’re going through. Know that in doing so, you are not only helping yourself but also inspiring others to do the same.

Remember, vulnerability is not a weakness but a strength. It’s the key to unlocking deeper connections, greater empathy, and more meaningful relationships. It’s the path to a more authentic and fulfilling life.

Commentary: This powerful speech challenges the notion that vulnerability is a weakness and instead presents it as a strength and a path to deeper connections and personal growth. It encourages the audience to embrace their vulnerabilities, share their stories, and foster a sense of belonging and understanding with others. This speech is suitable for audiences seeking to build more authentic relationships, overcome fears of judgment or rejection, or cultivate greater self-acceptance and empathy.

Speech 6: The Power of Gratitude

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, it’s easy to get caught up in the pursuit of more – more success, more wealth, more recognition, more achievements. We often focus so intently on what we lack that we forget to appreciate all that we already have.

But what if I told you that the key to a happier, more fulfilling life lies not in the constant pursuit of more but in the simple practice of gratitude? What if I said that by cultivating a deep sense of appreciation for the blessings in your life, you can transform your outlook, your relationships, and your overall well-being?

Gratitude is the act of acknowledging and appreciating the good things in your life, no matter how big or small they may seem. It’s the practice of focusing on what you have rather than what you lack, of counting your blessings rather than your burdens.

When you make gratitude a daily habit, you begin to shift your perspective from one of scarcity to one of abundance. You start to notice the little things that bring joy and meaning to your life – a beautiful sunset, a warm hug from a loved one, a kind word from a stranger. You become more present in the moment, more attuned to the beauty and wonder that surrounds you.

Gratitude also has the power to transform your relationships with others. When you express appreciation and thanks to the people in your life, you strengthen your connections and foster a sense of positivity and goodwill. You create a ripple effect of kindness and compassion that extends far beyond your immediate circle.

But gratitude is not just about feeling good in the moment. It’s also a powerful tool for resilience and growth. When you face challenges or setbacks, gratitude can help you maintain a sense of perspective and hope. It can remind you of the strengths and resources you have to draw upon, the people who support and believe in you, and the lessons and opportunities that lie ahead.

So make gratitude a daily practice. Take a few moments each day to reflect on the things you’re thankful for, no matter how small they may seem. Express your appreciation to others through words and actions. Cultivate a mindset of abundance and positivity, even in the face of adversity.

Remember, gratitude is not just a feeling but a choice. It’s a powerful tool for transforming your life and the lives of those around you. By embracing gratitude, you open yourself up to greater joy, connection, and fulfillment. You become a force for good in the world, spreading light and positivity wherever you go.

Commentary: This uplifting speech highlights the transformative power of gratitude in fostering happiness, strengthening relationships, and building resilience. It encourages the audience to make gratitude a daily practice, focusing on the blessings in their lives and expressing appreciation to others. This speech is suitable for a wide range of audiences, from corporate teams seeking to boost morale and positivity to individuals looking to cultivate a more fulfilling and joyful life.

Life is a tapestry woven with threads of joy, sorrow, growth, and change.

These six speech examples about life offer a glimpse into the many facets of the human experience – from embracing change and persevering through challenges to finding purpose, learning from failure, embracing vulnerability, and cultivating gratitude.

As you navigate your own journey through life, may these speeches serve as a source of inspiration, comfort, and guidance.

Remember that you are not alone in your struggles and that every challenge you face is an opportunity for growth and transformation.

So embrace the journey, trust in the process, and know that with courage, resilience, and a grateful heart, there is no limit to what you can achieve.

16 Most Life-Changing Motivational Speeches & What You’ll Gain from Them

It’s all very well reading about ways to get ahead in life, but no account will ever reach you in quite the same way as hearing someone speak about their own experiences. While these people may be household names now, it wasn’t always that way, and this collection of some of the best motivational speeches will move you and inspire you to make your own dreams come true.

From Arnold Schwarzenneger talking about how he filled every moment of every day with steps to fulfil his ambition of becoming Mr. Universe, to J.K. Rowling’s life as an impoverished single mother, these speeches will fill you with the drive and determination to reach your full potential, and not let anything stand in your way.

Some are long, and some last just a few minutes, but each one will make you want to grab life with both hands and go for what you want, whatever it is.

“Most people have done all that they’re ever going to do – they raise a family, they earn a living, and then they die.”

That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? Wrong! Life is made for greater things, and you are meant for greater things.

When Les Brown was a child, he was labeled ‘educable mentally retarded’, and until a chance encounter with another teacher, he believed that he would amount to nothing. But this one teacher planted the seeds in Les’ head which would blossom and grow, and eventually make him one of the best motivational speakers of all time.

This speech will give you permission to rise above other people’s opinions, to break free of their prejudices, and make a success of whatever you do. Watch ‘It’s Not Over Until You Win! Your Dream is Possible’ and take those first steps towards following your passion and making your dream come true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f0nIhDpXuU

“Stress doesn’t come from the facts, stress comes from the meaning that we give the facts.”

Life is about choices. Every day we’re faced with hundreds of choices, and this speech by Tony Robbins will help you see that it’s the choices, not the conditions, which shape our lives.

Take a moment during this speech to pause and reflect on some choices you have made in the past, and really think about the direction your life took because of them, both good and bad. Tony Robbins explains in his inimitable way that we have the choice to focus on what we want, and that when we focus, we can achieve whatever we want.

Part of Tony’s speech explains how, when the economy is down, some people thrive and some people crash and burn, and the COVID 19 pandemic is the perfect example. Small businesses took a huge hit, and while some of them threw up their hands in despair and said ‘that’s it, it’s over for us’, others adapted, and saw it as an opportunity to expand, diversify, and turn the situation to their advantage.

And that’s the cornerstone of this video – how we react, how we adapt, and how we choose is the difference between success and failure.

“So every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing the goal to make this goal – this vision – into reality.”

Be inspired by Arnold Schwarzenneger as he talks about his goal of becoming Mr. Universe. Never wasting a second of his day, Arnie worked in construction, spent 5 hours in the gym, and went to acting classes, all of which took him further along his journey to making his dream come true.

We all have a propensity to waste time, but if you have a goal, if you have a passion that smolders away, take a leaf out of Arnie’s book and make sure that everything you do propels you forward.

And don’t be afraid to fail.

“Your conviction and your convenience don’t live on the same block.”

If you are a fan of The Secret, you will be familiar with Lisa Nicholls. In this video, Lisa tells Tom Bilyeu how she was willing to leave everything and everyone behind in order to grow into the version of herself that she knew she wanted.

Lisa explains how, as a young mother, she was forced to wrap her baby in a towel for two days because she had no money for diapers, and how it was at that moment that she vowed never to be that broke or that broken again.

Change, success, drive…they’re all inconvenient and disruptive, and Lisa Nicholls demonstrates that wonderfully in this emotional and highly motivating interview in which she declares “your story is not meant to be your fortress, your story is meant to be your fuel.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQmqLwNtho

Eric Thomas had a dream, a goal, and that goal was to be the best motivational speaker in the world. He didn’t achieve this by giving 70%, or 80%…he didn’t achieve it by staying in bed late in the mornings. He achieved it by giving 100% every minute of every day.

Listen to Eric’s words, hear the passion in his voice, and feel the lessons he is giving to you if you want to be the best at whatever you do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuHZC-ObA8

“If we don’t take control of our environment, it takes control of us.”

This short piece by Tony Robbins has been designed to show you that you are in control of your own environment. Whether you realize it or not, what goes on around you has a massive influence on the way you feel and the way you act.

By taking leadership of your own life, you can defy outside influences and set your own tone for the day ahead, regardless of whatever or whoever is exerting pressure from the outside.

Follow Tony’s example of taking 10 minutes for yourself at the start of every day – for gratitude, prayer or wishes for family and friends, and a recap of what you want to accomplish that day, and your day will continue on that same path of thankfulness, hope, and goals.

“Your mind doesn’t know the difference between something you vividly imagined and something that’s real, literally!”

If you want to emulate the way successful people behave, take these 10 billionaires’ habits and adopt them yourself for 21 days.

Billed by Jim Kwik as being ‘like a magic pill’, these habits will rewire your brain into thinking and behaving like some of the world’s most successful people.

In this 8 minute clip, Jim shares how, for instance, your brain reacts the same way when you imagine your dog walking in as it does when your dog actually walks in, and this can apply to anything. What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

As much as this applies to positive things, it also can be applied to negative things, so if you imagine failure, that’s what you will get. Fill your mind with thoughts of success and that’s what will happen.

None of these habits are difficult to accomplish, but in doing so you will change your entire mindset into one of a hugely successful person, no matter what you want to achieve in life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fzGPwY40Cw

“Don’t leave crumbs.”

If this sounds more like a housekeeping hint and less like a motivational affirmation, you’re 50% right. Our lives do need housekeeping, and not leaving crumbs – i.e. regrets – which will come back and rob your tomorrow of joy, is one of the chores you need to do on a daily basis.

Matthew McConaughey delivers a powerful speech in a gentle way at the University of Houston Commencement Address.

Discussing the five rules he lives by, he will show you how to avoid falling into a trap of entitlement, and why ‘Unbelievable’ is the stupidest word in the dictionary.

With some invaluable life lessons contained inside a highly watchable speech, Matthew McConaughey is an unlikely but very inspiring speaker who has stayed humble despite all his successes.

“There are a lot of sharks in the world; if you hope to complete the swim, you will have to deal with them. So if you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.”

Spoken with eloquence and quiet assuredness, this six-minute speech draws on US Navy Admiral William McRaven’s experience of survival in the Navy Seals.

He explains how making your bed, while seemingly insignificant and even pointless, will set a series of tasks in motion which will ensure that at best, the first job of the day is done, and at worst, you have a neat, tidy bed to fall into at the end of a trying day.

The world is full of people who want to bring you down (the sharks) but if you stand your ground, they will eventually swim away, leaving you to go on to bigger and better things.

“Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the face with a brick…don’t lose faith.”

Steve Jobs, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Apple Inc. was hit in the face with more than one brick during his 56 years on earth. From being given up for adoption as a baby, to being fired from the very company which he founded, he never let anything get in his way.

In this commencement speech at Stamford University in 2005, Steve explained how his love for what he did spurred him on to rebuild his life in spectacular fashion.

Life dealt a further blow when, in 2003, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

This speech focuses on three stories which, when combined, show how life offers opportunities for change and growth, no matter how dire the circumstances.

Steve Jobs never graduated college, but when he died in 2011, aged just 56, he had a net worth of US$7 billion. He achieved this by doing what he loved, and in this speech he will inspire you to do the same.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously than you might as well not have lived at all. In which case, you fail by default.”

Let J. K. Rowling inspire you with this 2008 commencement speech at Harvard University. Extolling the virtues of failure and imagination, she tells the graduates how being at rock bottom set her free to pursue her dreams of being an author.

As poor as it is possible to be without being homeless, she created the world of Harry Potter and went on to amass a fortune of £795 million, but that without her failures in life, she would never have had the opportunity to do so.

Let her words become your own mantra, and view every failure in your life as a future success.

“We shine, because baby you just can’t dim the sun.”

A beautiful antidote for anyone who has ever felt or been told that they are ‘too much’, Gina Hatzis’ winning Speaker Slam speech of 2018 will give you permission to be unashamedly you.

Although written by a woman for women, this powerful and sometimes humorous speech about being your own authentic self will inspire anyone – man or woman – to shine and never dim their own light to suit other people.

“The first step you need to take is just that…step.”

If you are in need of a short, sharp burst of motivation, listen to this speech by ex Navy Seal, Jocko Willink.

Running for less than three minutes, this recording will inspire you to take a step into whatever you want to achieve. Awarded both the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for service, Jocko Willink is no stranger to taking those brave steps, having come face to face with Iraqu insurgents in Ramadi. He will spur you on to put one metaphorical foot in front of the other, and will leave you in no doubt as to what you need to do to achieve your goals.

“On the other side of your maximum fear are all of the best things in life.”

If you like your motivation with a side order of laughter, watch Will Smith as he talks about fear. Agreeing to skydive on a night out with friends, Will realizes that he actually has to go through with it.

Discussing how fear ruins things (he couldn’t sleep or eat before the jump), Will also discloses that beyond fear was the most blissful experience of his life, and how that principle can be applied to anything in life.

“Only those that can see the invisible, can do the impossible.”

Tyrese Gibson knows success, and in this speech he talks about how it can be achieved, by anyone who wants it.

Actor, singer, author, model…Tyrese seems to have the Midas touch, but he didn’t get it by luck. Follow his words as he gently but passionately guides you along the path you need to take if you have goals and dreams in life.

“I refuse to be another man who lived and died, and wasn’t significant’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzl3CQXMRVo

“If it is written, so shall it be.”

When Steve Harvey’s teacher crushed his dreams of being on TV, the one person who believed in him was his father. He told him to put a piece of paper with his dreams on in his drawer, and to read it every morning and every night.

His dreams came true.

It didn’t always come easy for Steve Harvey though – he spent years living in his car when he had nowhere else to go, but the one thing he never lost was his ambition and determination to see his dreams through to fruition.

A firm believer in the Law of Attraction, Steve still has vision boards and still commits his dreams to writing, and encourages you to do the same in this speech that made Obama cry.

These motivational speeches, and many more like them, show how having guts, determination, and a vision will get you anywhere you want to go, no matter your beginnings in life. These inspirational speakers have suffered loss, sickness, and unbelievable hardships, but the one thing that got them through was their desire to win and their belief that they could.

Immerse yourself in their words of wisdom, and take that next step into your best life.

More on Motivation

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• Motivational Quotes

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Think & Play Bigger!

18 Short Speeches About Life

At first, I set out to craft a speech about life . But as I delved deeper into the topic, I realized that summing up the vast tapestry of life in a single speech is a tall order. Life is not just one color or a single note; it’s a vibrant spectrum, a rainbow of experiences, moments, highs, lows, lessons, and memories. Each hue represents a different chapter, emotion, or milestone that contributes to our unique stories.

I also recognize that high school students might come across these words. I fondly recall my own school days when teachers would challenge us to pen down our thoughts on life. Such assignments, seemingly simple on the surface, often pushed us to self-reflection and growth.

With these memories and audiences in mind, I present to you not just one, but multiple speeches on life. Through these, I aim to touch upon the myriad facets of our existence, hoping that each reader, regardless of their age or journey, finds a sliver of resonance, a hint of inspiration, or a moment of reflection.

Speeches About Life

Speeches about life resonate with all of us because life, in its vastness and complexity, is the shared journey we all navigate. It’s filled with rainbows of experiences, highs and lows, and tales of courage, fear, triumphs, and setbacks.

Through these speeches, we get a window into the varied perspectives, learnings, and stories of others. They offer a mirror to our own experiences, sometimes teaching us, sometimes validating our feelings, and often inspiring us to see our path in a new light.

Moreover, life speeches bridge the gap between generations.

From a teenager in high school to a professional in their prime, everyone can find a piece of wisdom or an echo of their own story in these words.

By discussing life, we unite in our shared human experience, finding solace in the thought that we’re not alone in our struggles or joys. This universality, this binding thread, is what makes speeches about life timeless and impactful.

I have delivered these speeches in Toastmasters . I share these speeches when I teach about life and leadership. I have written them in the hope that you too will be inspired to write your speech about life and be an inspiration to others.

Tasks Masters and Big Thinkers

The Busy Trap: Why More Tasks Don’t Mean More Productivity

Failing Forward: How to Turn Setbacks into Springboards

Embrace Imperfection

Focus on What Matters Most

3 Ways to Enjoy & Simplify Life

The Persuasive Speaker Bootcamp

Amplify & Influence: Mastering Persuasive Presentations

The CEO Speaker Bootcamp: Craft Impactful Executive Speeches

The Informative Speaker Bootcamp: Crafting Captivating Educational Talks

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10 Famous Motivational Speeches You Need to Hear

• Carolyn Manion Kinnie
• April 1, 2024

Table of Contents

At The Speaker Lab, we’re dedicated to helping you launch and scale your speaking business. Since we’re dedicated to helping speaking professionals succeed, it stands to reason that we have a few favorite examples of our own! Today, we want to share some of the motivational speeches that our team thinks are most worth the listen. While you can find hundreds of inspirational talks on the internet, we think there’s something really special about these ten talks. Whether you want to be a speaker yourself or just need a mood boost, each of these examples is sure to leave you ample fuel for motivation and reflection! 

Topics of the speeches we cover today range from psychology and relationships, to goal-setting and growth, to effective leadership, to personal stories that carry weighty lessons. For each speech, we’ll include some insights into what really sets these talks apart. We also highly recommend setting some time aside to give each on its own and form your own opinions! Let’s dive into some of these amazing motivational speeches so you can see (or hear!) for yourself why we love them so much. 

1. Brené Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

We’re going to start with almost a too-obvious choice. You will see Brené Brown’s name pop up on just about any  list of important motivational speeches. And with good reason! This 2011 TED talk isn’t just one of the most-watched TED talks of all time. It’s an incredible investigation into the roles that connection, shame and vulnerability play in human relationships. It’s also an eye-opening exploration into why we all tend to shrink from vulnerability and what could happen if we flipped the script. And from a purely public speaking standpoint, it’s a great display of Brown’s wit and charisma. If you struggle with vulnerability in your own life or are trying to understand why a loved one keeps shutting you out, Brown’s short but impactful talk might have some answers for you. 

We covered this motivational speech in our recent article about pathos because Brown is a master of emotional connection. She backs up her argument with ample academic research, but connects her message to real, relatable experiences throughout. As she narrates her own experiences in a therapist’s office, she invites the audience to walk through those experiences with her. Making psychological research accessible to the masses is no easy feat, but Brown manages to do it with storytelling and humor. Her greatest lesson, perhaps, comes in how vulnerability can teach how to treat ourselves kindly.

“Our job is to look and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”

2. Simon Sinek: “How great leaders inspire action”

Simon Sinek is a world-renowned author and speaker with an incredible knack for delivering profound and easily intelligible advice on leadership, business, and success. He has written several books and delivered many motivational speeches. His TED talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” which grew out of his first book, is perhaps the most well-known. Similarly to Brown’s speech, we think no list of the best motivational speeches would be complete without it. In short, it’s an analysis of how people like Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King Jr., and the Wright Brothers managed to accomplish amazing, unheard of things. Sinek theorizes that there is a unique way that great leaders communicate, and that’s how they get things done. 

If you’re a leader but don’t understand why your marketing and sales fall flat, or if you long to start a company but don’t know how to tap into what makes people excited about a business, Sinek has wisdom to share for you. His speech is for you if you’ll ever be in a leadership position or struggle to pinpoint your professional mission. And if you’re curious about why people trust certain political leaders and not others, you’ll want to listen to this speech. Sinek is a master of words and he distills a lot of fascinating information into simple stories and lessons about innovation and leadership. Give this one a listen to get fired up about what you believe and how you can make an impact with those beliefs. 

“ People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

3. Steve Jobs: Stanford Commencement speech  

Commencement addresses can be hit or miss. Sometimes they fill graduating seniors with energy and inspiration for the life ahead, other times they get a few laughs and more than a few yawns. Even celebrities and business leaders aren’t always up to the task of sending young adults off into the world. But in 2005 at Stanford University, Steve Jobs not only rose to the task, but outstripped expectations by delivering an iconic motivational speech that today is the most-watched commencement speech on YouTube. 

If you’ve been around The Speaker Lab for a while, you know we’re big fans of storytelling . Steve Jobs illustrates our favorite speaking strategy by structuring his remarks as three stories. The first: his experience as a college dropout and how it paved the path to his future. The second: his expulsion from Apple that allowed him to found Pixar and meet his wife, among other endeavors. And finally: his first brush with cancer and the second chance at life he was provided. While the last story rings differently in light of Jobs’s death in 2011, the wisdom he draws from the twists and turns of his life is applicable to far more than college seniors. 

The lessons of Jobs’s commencement address are myriad, and it’s a speech you’ll keep coming back to at different points in your life. Fortunately he summed them up himself:

“ Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” 

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4. Randy Pausch: “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams”

Randy Pausch was a pioneer in software and virtual reality development and a longtime professor at Carnegie Mellon University. In his 40s, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given just a few months to live. He delivered a final lecture as part of a series where academics were asked to give a talk on a topic that was deeply important to them–and he spoke about his childhood dreams.

Pausch showed his cancer scans at the start of his presentation, letting his audience sit with the reality of his terminal diagnosis. But his regular jokes (including onstage pushups) lightened the mood and allowed his audience to embark on a journey following his personal and professional ambitions. His lecture became a viral motivational speech and even landed him an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show a few weeks later.

Everybody has childhood dreams. Some people don’t accomplish them, but few forget them. Pausch’s lecture testifies to how having those big dreams can bear great fruit in your personal and professional life. He also provides great examples from his own journey of how going the extra mile–even if it seems crazy–can help you achieve those dreams. This is a long speech, but we encourage you to listen (or read ) in full because it’s so full of inspiration. But in the meantime, here are a few of our favorite lines: 

“Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.” 

“Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don’t really want to achieve their childhood dreams. Don’t bail. The best of the gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap.”

5. Kelly McGonigal: “ How to make stress your friend “

Stress is something we all deal with, sometimes to an overwhelming degree. Many people try every possible hack to eliminate stress for their lives or live in fear of it. But what if we treated stress as something helpful–or even as a friend? What if we trusted ourselves to cope appropriately with stress rather than letting it ruin our lives? That’s what health psychologist Kelly McGonigal explores in this viral TED talk. 

Challenging the common parlance of stress as the bogeyman is no small task. McGonigal backs up her research with several studies to show that while stress can have deleterious effects on health, it doesn’t have to. She also undertakes some of our favorite tactics here at The Speaker Lab by interacting with her audience to further engage them. While a pop quiz from the stage probably wasn’t on their bingo cards, her in person audience members got a real-time taste of the “social stress test.” (To fully appreciate McGonigal’s point, we recommend pretending you’re in the auditorium with her and attempting to perform what she commands.) Then, she walks her audience through the stress reaction they just experienced and explains how, equipped with new strategies for leveraging stress, they could use that same reaction to approach the situation constructively.  

McGonigal’s research, which has also been published in book form, is not without controversy in the psychology space. But in an ever increasingly stressed out society, her talk could be the motivational speech you need to tackle your stressors head-on. The best part? Turning to the communities around you during stressful events can help you rather than drain you! As McGonigal says:

“People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero. Caring created resilience.”

6. Carol Dweck: “The power of believing that you can improve ” 

You’ve probably heard the term “growth mindset” thrown around in the professional and educational space. But do you know who coined it? Carol Dweck is a Stanford psychologist who researches the impact of mindset on how we approach failure and success. She has studied how believing in one’s ability to learn and improve can radically affect our reaction to challenges. Her research claims that by focusing on effort and strategy, we can help students expand their minds and overcome barriers by having a “growth mindset” rather than a “fixed mindset.” 

While her research focuses on students, her TED talk discusses principles with universal application, such as the profound impact of believing we can change for the better. She also explores ideas for constructive communication with the next generation to set them up for success. Do you feel limited by externally applied standards? Have you been put in a box your whole life that you struggle to break out of? Do you throw in the towel easily because you feel that you just can’t win? Dweck’s motivational speech might give you more confidence in your abilities. Our favorite line?

“…praising the process that kids engage in, their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. This process praise creates kids who are hardy and resilient.”

7. Malala Yousafzai: “16th birthday speech at the United Nations”  

Malala Yousafzai is the world’s youngest Nobel laureate and one of the best known human rights advocates of her generation. Her speech before the U.N. in 2014 is a passionate appeal for setting worldwide injustices right. From her harrowing story of being shot in the head, to her advancement of nonviolence, this motivational speech is a moving reminder of how much work each and every one of us can do to lift the burden of the oppressed. 

Though her audience at the time of the speech was a group of world leaders, we can all learn a lot from Malala that applies to our own lives. In addition to her stirring personal story, she lays out a variety of action items that we can all undertake in our communities to lay a foundation for justice. Furthermore, she emphasizes how education and tolerance rather than violence and politics can help win the fight against terrorism. If you ever feel at a loss for what you can do to change the word, Malala is the motivator you need. This speech is also a great model for using your personal story and character or ethos to persuade your audience, which we cover here .

“Dear sisters and brothers, we realise the importance of light when we see darkness. We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced.”

“One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.”

8. Joel Osteen: “The power of I am”

Oprah described this sermon by pastor Joel Osteen as life-changing, and you might find it so too! Osteen is a clergyman, but many of his sermons are functionally motivational speeches that can inspire your life regardless of whether you’re religious or not. “The Power of I Am” is about how excessive negativity can control our lives. Osteen argues that when we say “I am ______,” we’re inviting whatever that is into our lives. If we repeatedly say “I am” statements followed by something negative or something we hate about ourselves, we are just digging ourselves deeper into that hole. 

Osteen’s words are badly needed in a world where the internet encourages negative comparison and loneliness is epidemic. He uses examples from Scripture and from his own life to show how talking yourself down becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. This is something we all experience at some point! You mess up, say “I’m an idiot,” and for the rest of the day your idiocy, clumsiness, or incompetence suddenly seems like the most noticeable thing about you. Or maybe an authority figure once identified you with your failures and you internalized it for years and years. Osteen’s sermon is an amazing call to do better. We can carry ourselves with confidence, not pride, and disconnect our flaws from our sense of self. 

“My encouragement is never say negative things about yourself. Most of us would never go up to another person, at least to their face and criticize them yet we have no problems criticizing ourselves. “I am so slow. I am so unattractive. I am so undisciplined”. That is cursing your future. Do yourself a favor and zip that up. We have enough in life against us already. Don’t be against yourself.”

9. Nicole Walters: “Why Excuses Are the #1 Thing Keeping You From Your Goals”  

Nicole Walters is an incredible entrepreneur and businesswoman who quit her successful corporate career to start her own company when she realized her blog was generating her significant passive income. This keynote from a conference for online creators outlines how she managed to do it all…with blood, sweat, tears, and no excuses! 

While Nicole dishes out amazing strategies for building your business and avoiding excuses, this is also an incredible example of how to give a great motivational speech. Our founder Grant Baldwin even did an analysis of her professional speaking performance here . Nicole uses humor, storytelling , and credible examples from her career to show how to avoid excuses and maintain sustainable innovation as you build your personal brand. If you want to start a business or expand your content creation but struggle with ambition and motivation, Nicole is your girl.

Get ready for some hard truths and a lot of humility, because it’s not easy! You can hear even more of her tips on our podcast here . She also came on our podcast for a conversation about race in the speaking industry , sharing her experience as a black woman who speaks professionally. This is a must listen if you’re interested in DEI and how the speaking industry can improve its diversity and inclusivity. 

Nicole is an abundant source of amazing one-liners and truth bombs. Here are two of our favorites to finish off: 

“Excuses are tools of incompetence. Those who specialize in them, are seldom good at anything else.”

“You’re not Kim Kardashian.” 

“Automate systems, not relationships.” 

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10. William Faulkner: Banquet Speech  

For our final must-listen motivational speech, we’re heading back in time. William Faulkner delivered this speech when he received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. The threat of nuclear war hung heavy at the time Faulkner received the award. Faulkner himself eschewed the acclaim and reward that his talent deserved. His speech is a testament to the immortality of art and literature. His words elegantly express how art and literature can help humanity survive beyond dark times. 

Especially in an age of AI, media cycles, and overwhelming access to information, a reminder of the power and importance of art is badly needed. Faulkner’s speech is short, but it’s extremely moving. Every sentence drips with the weight of writers and artists who went before him, carrying humanity through crises and catastrophes and helping rebuild and process their wake. Faulkner himself says it best: 

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Mastering how to deliver a great motivational speech is no easy task. We think these paragons of motivational speaking deserve special attention for their mastery and inspiration! And having a solid list of inspirational content to fall back on when you’re feeling down, bewildered, or uninspired is always a good idea.  If you want to become a motivational speaker yourself , taking inspiration from these great talks will help you find your own voice in the speaking industry. ( We can help too! ) 

• Last Updated: April 4, 2024

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21 Uplifting and Powerful Famous Speeches That You Can’t Miss

Life is not always rainbows and sunshine – we have all had days when nothing seems to be going as planned and when we find ourselves demotivated, bogged down and engulfed in sadness. On such days, when you are unable to motivate yourself, do you know what helps? Listening to great speeches — empowering ones.

Great communicators have this innate power of moving you with their brilliant command over words. Their words echo in your head for days, while filling you with hope and inspiration.

Isn’t it wonderful how just hearing a set of people who you’ve never met or known personally can leave you with such a lasting impression?

Here is a list of 21 famous speeches (and likely the best speeches) that are sure to give you goosebumps :

1. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address at Stanford University, 2005

The Chairman and Co-Founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs delivered an inspiring commencement address at the graduation ceremony of the 114th batch of Stanford University. 13 years later, his speech still holds relevance.

In a span of 15 minutes, Jobs imparted crucial life lessons through 3 stories that were inspired from his personal experiences. From love and loss to the inevitability of death – his words resonated with people of all ages.

Ending on a high note, he advised the audience to “stay hungry, stay foolish” – a phrase that became synonymous with Steve Jobs and till today, drives people to push themselves to become better versions of themselves.

2. J.K. Rowling’s Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2008

Author J.K Rowling who is best known for the Harry Potter book series delivered an empowering speech to the graduating class at Harvard University in 2008. Her speech was centered around two key points.

First being the benefits of failure and how there can be no success without it. Second, was the power of imagination and how we carry all the power in ourselves to change the world.

Even though J.K Rowling might have touched upon topics that we have been listening to or reading about for years, her knack of putting it together so perfectly strikes a chord like nothing else.

3. Jim Carrey’s Commencement Address at Maharishi University, 2014

Jim Carrey, who is known for his splendid comic timing and exceptional performances, took everyone by surprise at the graduation ceremony of the class of 2014 at Maharishi University wherein he delivered an inspiring speech with such aplomb.

In his life-changing advice wrapped in wit and humor, he speaks of fear, failure and the importance of doing what we love.

4. Barack Obama’s Election Victory Speech, 2008

Who doesn’t remember Obama chant “Yes we can!” as the entire world looked on and watched him inspire and instill national pride in the people of the United States of America.

One of the most powerful speeches of recent times, Barack Obama’s election victory speech in 2008 marked a historic moment that brought hope, promised change and responsibility, in the anticipation of a better future.

5. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech, 1963

On 28th August 1963, Martin Luther King delivered one of the most iconic speeches in history during the March on Washington in front of over 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial.

An American activist, Martin spoke with utmost clarity and purpose as he made a plea for racial equality and justice through this speech. The words “I have a dream” reiterated his vision of what America could be – a country that breaks away from the shackles of discrimination.

6. Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Do or Die Speech, 1942

Talking about orators, one cannot leave Mahatma Gandhi out from the list. Gandhi, the pioneer of non-violence launched the Quit India movement to demand India’s freedom from the 200-year British colonial rule wherein he announced the slogan – Do or Die, with determination.

His speech oozed infectious passion which went on to inspire India to fight for freedom or die in the process.

7. Nelson Mandela’s ‘I Am Prepared to Die’ Speech, 1964

The torchbearer of Africa’s freedom, Nelson Mandela fought all his life against apartheid. During his 3-hour long speech as a defendant at the Rivonia trial, he uttered the powerful words “I am prepared to die” which showed how he was willing to go to any length to grant equality to the people of Africa.

Even though he got imprisoned for 27 years shortly after, his speech did leave a tremendous impact.

8. Ellen DeGeneres’ Commencement Address at Tulane University, 2009

The multi-talented Ellen DeGeneres never fails to disappoint with whatever she does and the same can be said about her commencement address at Tulane University, where she shared her experiences and learning with the graduating class.

From quoting Lady Gaga to speaking about the major turning points in her life – Ellen kept the audience hooked with her uplifting speech.

9. Michelle Obama’s Commencement Address at Eastern Kentucky University, 2013

Michelle Obama addressed the 2013 graduating class of Eastern Kentucky University. She challenged the graduates to seek and learn from different perspectives and turn their weaknesses into strengths, just the way she did.

She also highlighted the importance of volunteering in community services and the impact it has on our lives.

10. Sheryl Sandberg’s Commencement Address at Harvard Business School, 2012

Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg imparted wisdom to the graduating class of 2012 of Harvard Business School.

While drawing parallels to her own experiences, Sheryl shared observations and precious advice with the students. She ended the speech on a humorous note as she said,

“Tomorrow, you get something that Mark Zuckerberg does not have. A Harvard degree.”

11. Oprah Winfrey’s Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2013

Oprah Winfrey is known to stir people’s emotions and motivate them with her powerful words. During her commencement address at Harvard, she emphasized on learning from mistakes and embracing failure, while reflecting on the setbacks she faced. Her encouraging words serve as a reminder to never let failure bog you down.

12. Bill Gates’ Commencement Address at Harvard Business School, 2007

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates addressed Harvard Business School’s class of 2007, urging them to change the world, eradicate poverty and tackle inequality. He emphasized on the role of technology in putting an end to global issues and encouraged students to take risks and not get intimidated by ‘complexities’.

13. Malala Yousafzai’s Address at the UN Youth Takeover, 2013

Activist Malala Yousafzai is an inspiration to many and her speech at the first ever UN Youth Takeover further reinforces that.

Malala, who was just 16 years old then, stunned the audience with her powerful and moving take on the right to quality education. Having seen difficult times during her childhood, she was determined to fight for what she believed in and inspire a change.

14. Winston Churchill’s ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ Speech, 1940

Another famous speech is that delivered by Winston Churchill, on 4th June 1940 to the House of Commons. The speech was meant to instill courage in the people during World War II, while the threat of Nazi invasion loomed over England.

He kept his speech concise, realistic and to the point as he reminded everyone about the strength and perseverance England has always exhibited.

15. Hillary Clinton’s Address at the Women in The World Summit, 2015

Calling women the ‘agents of change’, Hillary Clinton delivered a passionate speech at the Women in the World summit, speaking about the struggles women face in all walks of life due to unequal rights.

While remaining optimistic about seeing a positive change in future, she spoke about issues that often go overlooked such as equal pay, reproductive rights, paid maternity leave, living wage, LGBTQ rights, affordable child care among others.

16. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863

The Gettysburg Address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, is known as one of the greatest speeches in the world and makes a fundamental part of American history.

In just 272 words, Lincoln made valid arguments surrounding equality and concluded with the famous line,

“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

17. Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Your Elusive Creative Genius’ TED Talk, 2009

Known for the international bestseller, ‘Eat, Pray, love’, Elizabeth Gilbert gave an inspiring TED Talk wherein she shared her wisdom on creativity.

She spoke about the pressures it comes with and how one can go beyond what society says and connect with the ‘genius’ that resides in each one of us.

18. Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ Speech, 1947

The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru addressed India on the eve of independence with the speech, Tryst with Destiny. This historic speech celebrated the non-violent victory, acknowledging the struggle that had gone behind it and the belief he has in India, as a powerful, independent nation.

19. Mark Zuckerberg’s Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2017

The Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg addressed the 2017 graduating class of Harvard University.

Being a Harvard dropout, Mark commenced the speech by recalling his times spent at Harvard and how they shaped him. His thought-provoking talk highlighted the importance of purpose – finding our own and creating one for others. He left the audience with practical advice that ranged from tackling global issues to building communities.

20. Gloria’s Steinem’s Women’s March Speech, 2017

Feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, addressed over 500,000 women who gathered at the Women’s March in Washington DC, with fearlessness and conviction.

She took on topics plaguing the society such as the role of women in the world and equal rights, while sending a bold message to the government to not undermine the power of women.

21. Denzel Washington’s Commencement Address at University of Pennsylvania, 2011

“Fall forward,” – the two words that encompassed Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington’s commencement address at University of Pennsylvania in 2011. He encouraged students to take failure in the right spirit and never let it discourage them. He beautifully summarized why we must embrace failure, while recalling experiences during his growing up days.

Final Thoughts

Even though these best speeches stem from different premises, what binds them together is the wonderful feeling they leave you with.

Each of these famous short speeches contains the power to strike an emotional chord and help you find your feet amidst all the chaos. So, take a page from their books and let their words inspire you to keep going and never lose hope.

More Inspiring Thoughts

• 20 Most Inspiring TED Talks Of All Time You Should Not Miss
• 15 Inspiring Ideas to Boost Your Motivation for Success
• 50 Positive Quotes for Work That Will Put Your Motivation on Overdrive
• You Are What You Listen To: 11 Podcasts To Inspire Yourself

Featured photo credit: Matthias Wagner via unsplash.com

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30 Famous and Short Inspirational Speeches (5 minutes or less)

• December 13, 2023

This post is all about the best short inspirational speeches.

If you are in need of a quick boost of inspiration and motivation, you will find that in this post. I am one of those people who loves to get motivated. That sounds weird, right?

Well, a lot of people these days tend to give motivation a hard time because they don’t believe that it has lasting effects. In other words, they believe that what’s most important is your own self-discipline, because that’s what you have to rely on when motivation isn’t there.

And while I do agree with that sentiment in general, I will never pass up a great motivational podcast or YouTube video! 😀 There’s just something about them that even if they might not have lasting effects, they do truly help pump me up in the moment to get work done. And that’s usually what matters to me the most when I am looking for them in the first place.

So, here are the very best short motivational speeches so you can get that quick fix of motivation that you’re looking for, and ultimately move closer to your goals and dreams.

Short Inspirational Speeches

Believe in yourself speeches.

If you lack confidence or you are doubting yourself, these short motivational speeches will help you to believe in yourself again.

1. Rocky’s Inspirational Speech to His Son | ROCKY BALBOA

In less than 5 minutes, you’ll watch Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) explain to his son that if he wants to have the life he desires, he needs to believe in himself. He needs to stop listening to the people that tell him who he is, and instead go be his own person, and stop looking for someone to blame when things aren’t working out for him because ultimately it’s on HIM. This is one of the greatest inspirational speeches of all time.

2. Find Your Purpose | David Goggins – Motivational Speech

David Goggins is truly incredible. A former Navy SEAL, he has broken records and ran more races than you’d imagine. But the one thing that really stands out about him is his mindset.

Listen to this video if you want to be great. He tells you exactly what you need to do to get there.

Also, if you’ve never read David Goggins’ book “Can’t Hurt Me” , I highly recommend it. He talks about his rough upbringing, and how he was able to essentially become an entirely new person to become a Navy SEAL.

3. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF – Motivational Video (ft. Jaret Grossman & Eric Thomas)

This video is all about how important it is to have the proper belief system. If you truly believe that you are one of the best, you will start acting that you are one of the best, and eventually you may just be one of the best.

4. DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS DIE – Motivational Speech

This YouTube short by Mel Robbins is so good, I had to share it. A light bulb went on in my head when I first watched this. If there is something that is always on your mind, don’t let it haunt you forever because you never put yourself out there to try it. Go and DO!

Motivational Speeches About Not Giving Up

The following short motivational speeches are all about not giving up on your dreams. If you are losing hope, these short motivational speeches will inspire you to keep going.

5. Brené Brown It’s Not The Critic Who Counts

This speech will give you chills, and it is packed with great lessons about life. Brené Brown is a researcher who went viral for a Ted Talk, and here she talks about how to overcome critics and to keep believing in yourself no matter what. If you are worried about what people think of you, you NEED to watch this.

6. Amazing Motivational Speech by Denzel Washington 

This is another video that gave me chills. The main theme of this famous speech is “ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship”. Stay consistent even when it’s hard. Easy task after easy task won’t get you to where you want to be.

7. Steve Harvey – Inspirational Speech | Motivational Short Video | Incredible You

This short motivational speech by Steve Harvey is short but impactful. If you are someone who stepped out of your comfort zone to pursue something really difficult, and you’re thinking about giving up, this speech may just prevent you from doing so.

8. Ed Mylett on The Power of One More

Ed Mylett shares the story of how his father stayed sober until his dying day, and how Ed himself uses that same philosophy to never give up. Personal stories like these are always the most inspiring.

By the way, if you REALLY want to push yourself and become the best, read Ed Mylett’s most recent book on this same topic, “The Power Of One More” .

Motivational Speeches If You’re Feeling Behind

Are you feeling behind in life? If so, let’s change that. Watch these videos to be reminded that you are on your own unique path. You have no competition other than your past self. These short motivational videos will help you believe that.

9. Before You Feel Pressure – WATCH THIS | by Jay Shetty

Jay Shetty talks to a school class about how there’s no one “perfect” life timeline to follow, and that we are all on our own clock. 

10. Kevin Hart Motivational Speech

If you’ve made mistakes in your life (haven’t we all) this is a great story from Kevin Hart (famous comedian and actor) that will remind you of the power of making mistakes and pushing through hard times.

11. Oprah Winfrey | 5 Minutes For The NEXT 50 Years of Your LIFE

In this video, Oprah talks about the importance of really knowing who you are and what you want in your life. She talks about surrounding yourself with great people, and how to have enormous success. “Let excellence be your brand.”

Listen To These If You Need Perspective

Sometimes in life, we get so caught up in the day to day that we forget what truly matters – the people we love. If you are having trouble with something in life, give these videos a listen, because they just might help you realize what is really important.

12. Arnold Schwarzenegger – Organize Your Day | 1 MINUTE MOTIVATIONAL VIDEO

Are you the kind of person who always complains that you don’t have enough time to do something? If so, you’re not alone. We are all busy humans, running around doing a million things. But if you aren’t prioritizing what you know you should be doing, listen to this video.

13. How to Judge Your Life Using 3 Simple Questions | Brendon Burchard Speech| Goalcast

Have you ever heard of Mortality Motivation? It’s essentially what it sounds like… being motivated by the impending reality of your death. It sounds a little morbid, but it’s actually quite beautiful and it can be really beneficial if you harness it for good.

In this video by motivational speaker Brendon Burchard, he shares how a car accident when he was 19 gave him mortality motivation and changed everything for him.

14. FALL, SUFFER AND LEARN | MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH BY OPRAH WINFREY

This speech by Oprah was given to Harvard graduates, and it’s a unique speech because she talks about failing, even after the major success of her television show for over 20 years.

It’s refreshing to hear that even the most successful people fail. What really matters, though, is what you do with your failure. Do you learn from it and move on? Or do you give up?

15. YOU VS YOU – Best Motivational Video

This is a pretty intense video about competition. If your #1 competition is someone else, you need to change your perspective. Your only competition is YOU. The only thing preventing you from moving forward is you.

16. The Speech That Brought This Entire School To Tears

This is a speech about a man who never really paid much attention to his mother, until she passed away. It’s an emotional reminder to cherish the time you have with your loved ones, because you never know if the next time you see them will be the last time.

In my opinion, this speaker embodies many qualities of the best motivational speakers because he really knows how to capture the audience’s attention and pull on their heart strings.

17. 5 Minutes to Start Your Day Right! – MORNING MOTIVATION

This motivational speech is by a Navy SEAL who will remind you to start each day with a task completed, respect everyone, take risks, step up during tough times, and never give up. If you do these things, the next generation, and the generations that follow, will live better lives than we live today.

18. The Real You – Jim Carrey

This video is one of the best motivational speech examples because it reminds you of something so important: sometimes we can be so focused on earning more money, gaining fame, and becoming admired that we lose ourselves or we lose sight of what’s really important to us in the process.

Jim Carrey talks about how he is a great example of that. He got all of the money, fame, and admiration, and admits that that wasn’t really who he was. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that money and fame, or even getting to the top of the corporate ladder, while nice, aren’t going to be the thing that brings you fulfillment when it’s all said and done.

19. Ed Mylett Motivational Speech

I posted another motivational video by Ed Mylett above, but if you don’t know much about him, prepare to have your world rocked. He’s probably my absolute favorite motivational speaker because he is successful and he works hard, but he’s also (seemingly) a kind, family guy who’s been through a few things.

In this video, he talks about being “the one” that changed his family tree. Take a listen because I’m sure it’ll get you thinking on whether or not you can be “the one” in YOUR family.

P.S. If you love personal growth content, you should check out Ed Mylett’s podcast . I listen to it every week and it is one of my favorites.

20. If You Feel LOST, LAZY & UNMOTIVATED In Life, WATCH THIS! | Tony Robbins Motivation

If you are someone who is constantly blaming others or your circumstances for your unhappiness, you need to listen to this video by Tony Robbins . Bad things happen to us all, it’s up to you to focus on what you can control.

Great Inspirational Speeches About Hard Work

How hard do you think you work? Could you be doing more? If there’s a little voice inside of your heart that knows you could be doing more and better, these motivational videos about the value of hard work will help you push yourself.

And a side note: your chances of having good luck increase the harder and longer you work.

21. You’re Not Tired, You’re Just Weak – David Goggins Motivation

If you’re feeling lazy or like you don’t want to do something, watch this video til 2:25 . It will give you the push you need to put your head down and do the work. It’ll remind you to keep pursuing your goals and to keep challenging yourself. Key takeaway: push yourself beyond your perceived limits.

22. Hard Work & Patience – A Gary Vaynerchuk Original Film

If you want to be motivated to work hard, listen to Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk is a creative genius known for his marketing tactics. This famous motivational speech is all about playing “the long game”, as in, working for a long time and having patience instead of working hard for a short period of time and expecting to win quickly.

23. OBSESSION – Best Motivational Speech

This is one of my favorite short motivational speeches because it makes me feel a little more normal for being “weird”. I’m the kind of person who chooses to work on the weekends instead of hanging out with people. Crazy, right? But it’s because I’m working toward a dream of mine and it’s something that’s really important to me. The most important thing to remember: it’s okay to devote yourself to something. It’s the only way to get what you want in life.

24. WORK LIKE HELL – Best Motivational Video

This is a series of motivational speeches about doing a little bit more and outworking your competition. I’m not going to lie – I’m up late writing this post and listening to this very video is what’s motivating me to keep going.

25. The video EVERY woman should watch!

Whether or not you’re a Rachel Hollis fan may be up for debate (and that’s okay!) but I happen to think she’s a great motivational speaker. This entire speech will inspire you to work hard and take massive action – today.

26. NEVER SURRENDER – Powerful Motivational Speech (by Kobe Bryant)

This one minute video by the late Kobe Bryant is one of the most famous short speeches. I read a book recently by his former personal trainer and I learned that Kobe really outworked everyone. He talks about a quote in this video that really stuck with him, and I think it’s great advice if you’re the kind of person who needs motivation to keep working hard.

Motivational Speeches About Working Smart

Have you ever heard the saying “work smarter, not harder”? That saying is all about ensuring that the work you are doing is actually efficient. Are you getting to where you want to go with all of the work that you are putting in? Are you getting closer to your goals and your dreams? Or are you sprinting like a hamster on a wheel and just running in circles?

Here are great videos on the importance of working hard but also working intentionally.

27. SET SYSTEMS RATHER THAN GOALS – Motivational Speech – James Clear

A goal gives you a sense of direction, but if you don’t spell out precisely how you are going to get to a goal, it is useless. You must develop systems. Listen to this James Clear video to gain valuable life lessons.

By the way, James Clear is an author who wrote perhaps my favorite book of all time: “Atomic Habits” . It’s life-changing if you haven’t read it yet.

28. Matthew McConaughey | 5 Minutes for the NEXT 50 Years of Your LIFE

This is one of the best motivational speeches of all time about how to live a great life for YOU. It’s filled with little pieces of wisdom that’ll really get you thinking about how you live your life and in what direction you want to go.

29. Visualization is the key – Bob Proctor

Do you believe in the Law of Attraction? If not, I have to say I’m surprised! I’ve experienced it in my own life more than once, and it is incredibly powerful. Here’s a great video that sums up the power of visualization, and if you want to learn more about the Law of Attraction or manifestation in general, read this post .

This video shows the true power of words, thoughts, and feelings that you have.

30. How to Stay Motivated – Carla Harris

Here is a YouTube short with very practical advice from Carla Harris on HOW to stay motivated. It’s all about having a vision!

This post was all about short inspirational speeches. Which one was your favorite?

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Top 25 Best Motivational Speeches About Life: Short Motivational Speeches to Take Massive Action

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These are the top 15  best motivational speeches  about life to help motivate and inspire you!

Every day our motivational levels will waiver but if you can figure out how to stay motivated you will set yourself for an incredible amount of success in life.

Tony Robbins talks about this as push vs. pull motivation . Push motivation is usually where you have to push yourself to do something and oftentimes include a lot of willpower. Pull motivation is much easier, more natural, and flows easily as you want to do the specific event.

In this Psychology Today article it says that “Pull-based motivation is about tapping the desire to achieve something. It’s about establishing a quest and taking action not to remove a current pain, but to bring yourself closer to a deeply desired end. Maybe it’s completing a marathon or learning to play guitar.”

Ultimately you want to find activities in life that have you being pulled to do them. That usually happens when you begin to align your life with your goals, values, and daily routines. 

Motivation will determine how great your life ends up being. If you want to change your life you have to get moving, change your physiology, and create powerful habits. I listen to one of the videos as morning motivation every single day!

Here are the 15  best motivational speeches to help you get inspired!

Table of Contents

Top 15 Best Motivational Speeches

1.) tony robbins – why we do what we do (tedx speech).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpc-t-Uwv1I&list=PL3JDCD84BjcJv0_bOMqejyCBBz8JCZ_Ks&index=5

Imagine speaking in front of the most wealthy and successful individuals in the world — what advice could you possibly give to billionaires and CEO’s? Tony Robbins is one of the few people that can motivate and inspire them as some of his top clients are those exact people. This TedX speech will help you understand why you do what you do.

2. Steve Jobs – 2005 Standford Commencement Speech

Steve Jobs Harvard commencement speech is one of the best motivational speeches of all time, not to mention the best commencement speech ever. While many of us admire Jobs and love his work, he was often very misunderstood by the masses. This rare and candid speech will show you how to follow your passion and create a life you love.

And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever that somehow the dots will connect in the future.” — Steve Jobs

3. Les Brown – Georgia Dome Speech

Les Brown has some of the best motivational speeches ever. He is a world renown speaker, author, and trainer that has accomplished amazing feats in his life.

While his list of accolades is impressive when you learn where he came from it’s even more so. Enjoy this amazing speech live from the Georgia Dome in front of 30,000 people!

This is one of my favorites of all time. When things aren’t working, I listen to this inspirational speech about success to overcome challenges.

4. David Goggins – Driven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrT1eHs1b0&t=1571s

David Goggins is arguably the most badass human being ever. He’s been a Navy Seal, Army Ranger, ultra-marathon runner, and holds the pull-up record for most pull-ups in a 24 hour period (4,030)! When I think of the best motivational speeches I can’t help but add David Goggins!

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger – 6 Rules of Success (Commencement Speech)

Regardless of your political views, it’s hard to admit that Arnold has not accomplished an incredible amount in his lifetime. From moving to Austria to America to becoming a bodybuilder, Mr. Olympia champion, top-grossing actor, and governor of California.

6. Tony Robbins – New Year, New You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIHmty265Us

This is probably the video that will get you to reshape your life and vision more than most. If you’ve ever set a resolution only to fail while it’s still January (who hasn’t done that?) this video is for you.

Most of all, Tony talks in-depth about how to make lasting changes in your life. Instead of focusing on resolutions or abstract goals, focus on what really matters to make the change you need!

This is one of the best motivational speeches about life I’ve ever heard. Anytime I’m in a rut or feeling stuck, I always play this and get super inspired.

7. Mel Robbins – Secret to Self-Motivation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoWnfCoFdYs

Mel Robbins is a top speaker and best-selling author after creating “ The 5-Second Rule ” and sharing it with the world. After getting to meet her in person, I can say she is incredibly inspiring and loves to help people.

8. Terry Crews Motivational Speech

Terry Crews is well known by many but his backstory & route to success is even more impressive!

9. Denzel Washington – Commencement Speech at Dillard University

Who doesn’t love Denzel Washington? His acting is incredible but his speech about succeeding in life is one of his truly epic performances. If you feel lost or disappointed with your life, this is a great video to get you motivated!

10. Admiral William H. McRaven – University of Texas At Austin

Do you make your bed each morning?

Admiral William McRaven shows why making your bed as part of your morning routine will give you discipline and start the day winning.

Let’s be honest, there are way too many amazing motivational speeches about life to only include ten. Here are some other incredible speeches that can change your life!

More Motivational Speeches About Life

11. extreme ownership with jocko willink (tedx speech).

Jocko Willink is a retired, ex-Navy Seal and also the best-selling author of “ Extreme Ownership .” If you don’t follow him on Twitter I highly recommend it as he seems like one of the most disciplined human beings alive.

After seeing him at a “ Success Live ” seminar I can say his intensity his second to none. Jocko gives one of the best motivational speeches ever with this TEDx talk!

12. J.K. Rowling – Harvard Commencement Speech

J.K. Rowling has an incredible story. From a broke waitress barely able to survive turned into one of the best-selling authors of all time. She has gone on to publish the Harry Potter series that also turned into one of the most successful movie franchises ever.

I love this quote from her epic motivational speech:

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

13. Inky Johnson – One of the Most Epic Speeches About Life

Inky Johnson gives one of the best speeches about life challenges ever. After working his entire life to make it to the NFL, a freak injury in college paralyzed his right arm entirely. But instead of letting this injury ruin his life he turned his pain into passion by becoming a motivational speaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH1OFoBfDRM

14. Eric Thomas – Motivation Addicts Speech

Eric Thomas aka “ET the Hip Hop Preacher” is one of the world  best motivational speakers of all time! In fact, if you type in motivational videos on Youtube his videos almost always come up first.

He is so passionate it’s hard to not love his message. His motivational speeches have taken over and this is one of my all-time favorites!

15. Jim Carrey Commencement Speech at Maharishi University of Management

Jim Carrey is often portrayed negatively in the media as of late but I think he’s incredible. He genuinely understands what’s important in life and wants to help others find the way to success. Jim used his vision to create an epic life and shares his gift with the world in this inspirational speech about life.

This might be the best motivational quote I’ve ever heard. Never forget, always follow your passion:

I learned many great lessons from my father — not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you  love .”

16. Ellen DeGeneres: Tulane University Commencement Speech

Ellen DeGeneres has overcome a lot of odds in her life and created a truly epic life. I love how much wisdom, inspiration, and humor is in this amazing speech about life. She is an incredible person who continues to inspire millions of people around the globe.

Really, when I look back on it, I wouldn’t change a thing. I mean, it was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most important thing is … to be true to yourself. Ultimately, that’s what’s gotten me to this place. I don’t live in fear. I’m free. I have no secrets and I know I’ll always be OK, because no matter what, I know who I am.”

17. Sheryl Sandberg Commencement Speech

Sheryl Sandberg is another amazing motivational speaker and COO of Facebook. Her speeches and words have helped inspire women worldwide.

18. Oprah Winfrey – Harvard Commencement Speech

Oprah is one of my favorite inspirational stories about perseverance of all-time. She had such a difficult childhood it’s nearly impossible for most people to even believe.

Yet she went on to become one of the most successful, wealthy, and influential people the world has ever seen. I love her message of positivity and fulfilling your dreams in life.

19. Will Smith Inspirational Speech – Pursuit of Happiness

This movie is phenomenal and really invokes a ton of emotion and feelings in this particular scene. Remember, never listen to anyone telling you what’s possible!

Don’t ever let somebody tell you … you can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream. You gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”

Best Sports Motivational Speeches

Sports have created some of the best motivational speeches ever. Fake or real, these are some of the most popular motivational speeches from Hollywood!

20. Al Pacino – Any Given Sunday Speech

As a huge movie fan, I love this speech and consider it the best sports motivational speeches of all time. Al Pacino is an amazing actor and he delivers an incredible speech to motivate his team to victory.

“ On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our fingernails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference. Between WINNING and LOSING…between LIVING and DYING. ”

21. Herb Brooks – Miracle Speech

While the speech is great it’s even better because it’s based on a true story about the Olympic team in the 1980’s! This speech propelled the U.S. to beat the Soviet Union and become the gold meal champions!

As Herb said, “ Great moments are born from great opportunity .”

22. Rocky Motivational Speech

Rocky might be the best motivational video ever. While the original is a little outdated there have been so many sequels it continues to stay relevant in mainstream culture.

If you learn about the story behind the movie it’s even more inspirational. At the time Sylvester Stallone was so broke he had to sell his dog and was sleeping on park benches. After watching a boxing match he got motivated and wrote the script that would change his life.

Check out my favorite quote from the Rocky motivational speech:

The world ain’t’ all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a mean and nasty place. And I don’t care how tough you are it’ll beat to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! “

23. Ray Lewis & Eric Thomas – “Beast” Motivational Speech

This inspirational speech is from two icons – Ray Lewis and Eric Thomas. Ray is a former hall of fame NFL player who knows how to generate hype, excitement, and enthusiasm from his teammates. This was a no-brainer when selecting the best sports motivational speeches.

Remember as Eric Thomas said, “ Sleep, sleep is for people who are broke. I got an opportunity to make a dream become a reality. ”

24. Best Motivational Sports Speech 

The crazy thing about this inspirational speech is that it’s a true story!  This epic speech was delivered to a group of high school football players.

25. Tom Brady – Best Motivational Video To Prove Haters Wrong

Tom Brady is the greatest player of all time. He was doubted from the moment he walked into the NFL combine. Yet, he is still playing the game 20+ years later and is arguably the best quarterback of all time.

He’s proven the haters wrong with his relentless work ethic, consistent performance, and longevity in a physically challenging sport. I love this motivational video!

Remember what Tom Brady said, “ To me what separates good players from great players is to execute under pressure. ”

Enjoy the best motivational speeches to give you the momentum to take the next step!

Are you ready to make this the year that will change your life forever? Quit waiting and start creating success today!

Never give up, this is your year to create success! 

Do you think these are some of the best motivational speeches about life ? Which one of them is your favorite?

Did I miss a motivational or commencement speech that you love? Let me know in the comments! 

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My name is Michael and I'm the creator of Inspire Your Success. My goal is to give you the tools, resources, and inspiration to build an epic freelance writing business.

January 30, 2018 at 2:07 am

Love these and wanted to add 1 more from Eric Thomas, literally one of the most motivational people to so many people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuetQSwFW8

February 7, 2018 at 7:10 am

Damn great call I totally forgot about ET — he’s one of the best!

January 30, 2018 at 3:04 am

Glad you included Jocko. Highly recommended podcast.

February 7, 2018 at 7:09 am

Thanks Drew — Jocko is the man! After seeing him live I was ready to run through a wall haha inspiring guy!

April 17, 2018 at 6:43 am

Amazingly informative and helpful post. Everything is good enough and website is very well designed. I am very glad that I have come across to your blog because you have shared a one of a kind blog which has all the things in a very pleasant manner. Basically I’m a writer I would like to share my website here and sometimes I wait for your post to get more this type of blogs. A good blog always comes-up with new and exciting information and while reading I have feel that this blog is really have all those quality that qualify a blog to be a good one. What a great post, love this education related post! Great blog you have Thanks for sharing.

December 2, 2020 at 6:31 am

All are best speeches. Many i have listed but remaining i will listen soon. It is really motivational. Arnold speech is really motivational.

December 2, 2020 at 6:33 am

JK Rowling speech is my favorite. She is a wonderful author and worked very hard to get success. Remaining all are best.

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• Speech about Life for Students and Children

Speech about Life

Good morning one and all present here. I am standing before you all to share my thoughts through my speech about life. Life is a continuous ongoing process that has to end someday. Life is all about adoring yourself, creating yourself. A quote for you that life can be only understood backward but it must be lived forwards. Life itself is a golden opportunity to live a meaningful life and support others to do so. It doesn’t matter how many years you live. But it matters how well you live a quality life.

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The fear of death always threatens our lives. Every person has to face death sooner or later, but that doesn’t mean that it should discourage us from living life to the fullest or achieving our goals. A person is wise only when he/she is ready to meet destiny when it comes, but until that time enjoys every bit of it. It is a sense of readiness. It is a journey in everyone’s life wherein we have to cross the bridge of death to be able to wake up to a life eternal.

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Human life – A very Precious Gift

Human life is truly a very precious gift. Each moment of human life carries us an opportunity, to act to develop and express our virtues. Every moment unlocks the path to us to receive blessings. This is the truth that life gives us both positive and negative situations. What is really important is how we react.

Life is the gift of God in the form of trust that we will make it meaningful in whatever we can. We are all unique individuals. No one is born like you and no one will ever be, so cherish your individuality. Many times, I come across people accusing God of things that they don’t have. They always cursing their lives. But, do they realize that this life itself is precious? If we make it worth living and work hard towards positivity.

Life is a Journey, not a Destination

Life is nothing but a journey with lessons, hardships, heartache and special moments. It will ultimately lead us to our destination, our purpose in life. The road will not always be a plane; in fact, throughout our travels, we will face many challenges.

These challenges will always test our courage, strengths, weaknesses, and faith. Along our way, we may encounter obstacles that will come between the paths and we are destined to take.

In order to be on the right path, we must overcome these obstacles. Sometimes these obstacles are really blessings in disguise, only we don’t understand that at the time. The secret of life is best known to those who are not attached to anything deeply so much.

Therefore, they remain out of touch with worries and shifting fortunes of their lives. They are the people who do not measure their lives in terms of materialistic possessions, but by measuring their lives in terms of people they cannot live without.

Lastly, I will conclude that we should make life worthwhile. It should be with the love of our family and friends that life can be made beautiful. Life can be more beautiful and purposeful by discharging our duties in our family, at work, society and the world at large.

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10 of the Most Famous and Inspirational Speeches from History

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

What makes a great and iconic speech? There are numerous examples of brilliant orators and speechmakers throughout history, from classical times to the present day. What the best speeches tend to have in common are more than just a solid intellectual argument: they have emotive power, or, for want of a more scholarly word, ‘heart’. Great speeches rouse us to action, or move us to tears – or both.

But of course, historic speeches are often also associated with landmark, or watershed, moments in a nation’s history: when Churchill delivered his series of wartime speeches to Britain in 1940, it was against the backdrop of a war which was still in its early, uncertain stages. And when Martin Luther King stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he was addressing a crowd who, like him, were marching for justice, freedom, and civil rights for African Americans.

Let’s take a closer look at ten of the best and most famous speeches from great moments in history.

Abraham Lincoln, ‘ Gettysburg Address ’ (1863).

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches in American history, yet it was extremely short – just 268 words, or less than a page of text – and Abraham Lincoln, who gave the address, wasn’t even the top billing .

The US President Abraham Lincoln gave this short address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on 19 November 1863. At the time, the American Civil War was still raging, and the Battle of Gettysburg had been the bloodiest battle in the war, with an estimated 23,000 casualties.

Lincoln’s speech has been remembered while Edward Everett’s – the main speech delivered on that day – has long been forgotten because Lincoln eschewed the high-flown allusions and wordy style of most political orators of the nineteenth century. Instead, he addresses his audience in plain, homespun English that is immediately relatable and accessible.

Sojourner Truth, ‘ Ain’t I a Woman? ’ (1851).

Sometimes known as ‘Ar’n’t I a Woman?’, this is a speech which Sojourner Truth, a freed African slave living in the United States, delivered in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. The women in attendance were being challenged to call for the right to vote.

In her speech, Sojourner Truth attempts to persuade the audience to give women the vote . As both an ex-slave and a woman, Sojourner Truth knew about the plight of both groups of people in the United States. Her speech shows her audience the times: change is coming, and it is time to give women the rights that should be theirs.

John Ball, ‘ Cast off the Yoke of Bondage ’ (1381).

The summer of 1381 was a time of unrest in England. The so-called ‘Peasants’ Revolt’, led by Wat Tyler (in actual fact, many of the leaders of the revolt were more well-to-do than your average peasant), gathered force until the rebels stormed London, executing a number of high-ranking officials, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, Simon Sudbury.

Alongside Tyler, the priest John Ball was an important leading figure of the rebellion. His famous couplet, ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, / Who was then the gentleman?’ sums up the ethos of the Peasants’ Revolt: social inequality was unheard of until men created it.

Winston Churchill, ‘ We Shall Fight on the Beaches ’ (1940).

Winston Churchill had only recently assumed the role of UK Prime Minister when he gave the trio of wartime speeches which have gone down in history for their rhetorical skill and emotive power. This, for our money, is the best of the three.

Churchill gave this speech in the House of Commons on 4 June 1940. Having brought his listeners up to speed with what has happened, Churchill comes to the peroration of his speech : by far the most famous part. He reassures them that if nothing is neglected and all arrangements are made, he sees no reason why Britain cannot once more defend itself against invasion: something which, as an island nation, it has always been susceptible to by sea, and now by air.

Even if it takes years, and even if Britain must defend itself alone without any help from its allies, this is what must happen. Capitulation to the Nazis is not an option. The line ‘if necessary for years; if necessary, alone’ is sure to send a shiver down the spine, as is the way Churchill barks ‘we shall never surrender!’ in the post-war recording of the speech he made several years later.

William Faulkner, ‘ The Agony and the Sweat ’ (1950).

This is the title sometimes given to one of the most memorable Nobel Prize acceptance speeches: the American novelist William Faulkner’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature at Stockholm in 1950.

In his speech, Faulkner makes his famous statement about the ‘duty’ of writers: that they should write about ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’, as well as emotions and themes such as compassion, sacrifice, courage, and hope. He also emphasises that being a writer is hard work, and involves understanding human nature in all its complexity. But good writing should also remind readers what humankind is capable of.

Emmeline Pankhurst, ‘ The Plight of Women ’ (1908).

Pankhurst (1858-1928) was the leader of the British suffragettes, campaigning – and protesting – for votes for women. After she realised that Asquith’s Liberal government were unlikely to grand women the vote, the Women’s Social and Political Union, founded by Pankhurst with her daughter Christabel, turned to more militant tactics to shift public and parliamentary opinion.

Her emphasis in this speech is on the unhappy lot most women could face, in marriage and in motherhood. She also shows how ‘man-made’ the laws of England are, when they are biased in favour of men to the detriment of women’s rights.

This speech was given at the Portman Rooms in London in 1908; ten years later, towards the end of the First World War, women over 30 were finally given the vote. But it would be another ten years, in 1928 – the year of Pankhurst’s death – before the voting age for women was equal to that for men (21 years).

Franklin Roosevelt, ‘ The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself ’ (1933).

This is the title by which Roosevelt’s speech at his inauguration in 1933 has commonly become known, and it has attained the status of a proverb. Roosevelt was elected only a few years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression.

Roosevelt’s famous line in the speech, which offered hope to millions of Americans dealing with unemployment and poverty, was probably inspired by a line from Henry David Thoreau, a copy of whose writings FDR had been gifted shortly before his inauguration. The line about having nothing to fear except fear itself was, in fact, only added into the speech the day before the inauguration took place, but it ensured that the speech went down in history.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, ‘ Among Us You Can Dwell No Longer ’ (63 BC).

Of all of the great classical orators, perhaps the greatest of all was the Roman statesman, philosopher, and speechmaker, Cicero (whose name literally means ‘chickpea’).

This is probably his best-known speech. At the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, Cicero addressed the crowd, but specifically directed his comments towards Lucius Catiline, who was accused of plotting a conspiracy to set fire to the capital and stage and insurrection. The speech was considered such a fine example of Roman rhetoric that it was a favourite in classrooms for centuries after, as Brian MacArthur notes in The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches .

Queen Elizabeth I, ‘ The Heart and Stomach of a King ’ (1588).

Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to the troops at Tilbury is among the most famous and iconic speeches in English history. On 9 August 1588, Elizabeth addressed the land forces which had been mobilised at the port of Tilbury in Essex, in preparation for the expected invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

When she gave this speech, Elizabeth was in her mid-fifties and her youthful beauty had faded. But she had learned rhetoric as a young princess, and this training served her well when she wrote and delivered this speech (she was also a fairly accomplished poet ).

She famously tells her troops: ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too’. She acknowledged the fact that her body was naturally less masculine and strong than the average man’s, but it is not mere physical strength that will win the day. It is courage that matters.

Martin Luther King, ‘ I Have a Dream ’ (1963).

Let’s conclude this selection of the best inspirational speeches with the best-known of all of Martin Luther King’s speeches. The occasion for this piece of oratorical grandeur was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial. King reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give the speech, writing it out.

King’s speech imagines a collective vision of a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans, but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

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10 motivational speeches about life you need to watch

If you’re looking for something to help you get motivated for life, check out these ten fantastic inspirational speeches that are free to watch on YouTube.

Today, we’re counting down ten amazing motivational speeches about life that you need to watch. With speeches for students, speeches for entrepreneurs, and everyone in between, this list includes positive motivation for all.

From valuable life lessons covering all aspects of life to incredible stories from successful people talking about their journey to success, these amazing speeches are sure to make you feel positive and uplifted.

So, if you need a burst of motivation, let these powerful speeches act as your source of inspiration today.

10. Randy Pausch: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams 2007 – a beautiful last lecture

Kicking off our list of motivational speeches about life is this beautiful speech from American educator Randy Pausch, who knew at the time that he only had a few months left to live.

Rather than feeling hard done by due and delivering a sad speech, Pausch remains positive, delivering an inspiring speech to his listeners. He speaks of the things he values in life, making the most of our time here, achieving his childhood dreams, and offering inspiration for how we can, too.

9. David Foster Wallace: This Is Water 2005 – questioning our own perceptions

In his 2005 speech ‘This is Water’, David Foster Wallace questions conventions and encourages us to recognise our own closed-mindedness.

He says, “If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important, if you want to operate on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable.

“But if you’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you’ll know you have other options.”

8. Steve Jobs: 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech – inspiration from one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs

Steve Jobs’ inspirational speech for students at Stanford in 2005 gives an insight into the life of one of the most successful business leaders in recent history.

A pioneer of the personal computer revolution and a co-founder of Apple Inc., it is hard to imagine Jobs as anything but successful. However, this uplifting speech gives an insight into his setbacks and journey to success, including his determination to follow his passion.

Jobs encourages students to keep moving forward with what they love, despite challenges in life, rather than overthinking whether they’re on the right path.

7. ’20 Seconds of Insane Courage’ from We Bought a Zoo – amazing things will happen

In the heartwarming 2011 film, We Bought a Zoo , Matt Damon’s character Benjamin Mee tells his son that the best things come when we act with courage.

We all have fears. However, all fear does is hold us back, so his advice to his son to try a manageable “20 seconds of insane courage” is something we can all resonate with.

6. Matthew McConaughey: University of Houston Speech 2018 – finding joy in the process

The much-loved actor, known for his roles in films such as Interstellar and Dallas Buyers Club, spokeat the University of Houston back in 2018.

In the 40-minute speech for students, McConaghy talks about the importance of finding joy in the entire journey rather than focusing on reaching the next level of success.

He explains that by adopting a “constant approach” and focusing on enjoying the everyday act of creating and doing, he was able to find true success.

5. J.K. Rowling: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination 2008 – the benefits of failure

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has faced her fair share of controversy in recent years. However, there is no denying that her 2008 speech on the benefits of failure is one of the most motivational speeches about life. 

Speaking at the Harvard Commencement Ceremony in 2008, the author of the bestselling book series explained how both failure and imagination are crucial to success.

4. ‘Your Move Chief’ from Good Will Hunting – the importance of real-life experience

In the 1997 Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,  Dr Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) explains to Will Hunting (Matt Damon) the importance of real-life experience.

Hunting, who has proven his intelligence and has read many books , feels that he knows all there is to know about life. However, Maguire’s key teaching to the young man is that the things you learn from life experience are much more valuable than anything you can learn from a book.

3. Sheryl Sandberg: Harvard Business School Class Day Speech 2012 – wise words from one of the most successful women in America

Sheryl Sandberg is one of the most successful women in America. She is an entrepreneur, tech executive, and author who is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook.

In her 2012 Harvard Business School Class Day Speech, Sandberg offers some useful advice to graduating students. As well as offering insight into her own work, she advises students that “motivation comes from working on things that we care about.”

2. Denzel Washington: Fall Forward 2016 – reframing failure 

Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016, actor Denzel Washington talks about the importance of taking risks and accepting failure as part of the journey.

He explains that everyone fails and makes mistakes in life. So, the most important thing is that when you fall, fall forward. Make the most of every setback as a chance to learn and improve. Just get back up and try again. 

1. Brené Brown: The Power of Vulnerability 2013 – the most-watched Ted Talk on YouTube

Topping our list of motivational speeches about life is Brené Brown’s 2013 Ted Talk on the Power of Vulnerability. 

In her speech, which is now the most-watched Ted Talk on YouTube, Brown talks about the importance of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to live life to the fullest, embrace true connection, and allow us to go through life as our most authentic selves.

Notable mentions

Elizabeth Gilbert: Your Elusive Creative Genius 2009 : Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert gave this inspiring speech about tapping into our inner creativity in 2009. Watch: HERE

Michelle Obama: EKU Commencement Address 2013 : Perhaps one of the most inspiring women in the world, former First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to the 2013 graduating class at EKU about always questioning our own perceptions and transforming our weaknesses into strengths. Watch: HERE

FAQs about the motivational speeches about life

What are some inspiring quotes.

You can find some of our favourite inspiring quotes here .

What are the best speeches for students?

Denzel Washington’s Fall Forward speech is one of our favourite speeches for students.

What to do to motivate yourself?

Some great things to do to motivate yourself are writing down your goals, setting out manageable steps to achieve them, speaking to others who inspire you, and creating a vision board.

Siân McQuillan is a writer and travel lover from County Down, Northern Ireland. With a BA in English and History and an MA in Media and Broadcast Production from Queen’s University Belfast, Siân has gained extensive knowledge and experience writing across various forms of media. A travel lover, Siân can be found either out exploring new places around Ireland and the world or writing about her experiences of travelling and visiting new places. She recently wrote her first travel guide, The Ultimate Guide to Dublin, to share her love for Ireland’s capital city and offer some insight into all the things you need to see and do, places to eat and stay, hidden gems, and more.

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10 uplifting speeches from history that will inspire you in times of crisis

• Throughout history, leaders have made speeches that inspired millions and changed the course of history. Those speeches still inspire us today. 
• Famous speeches like Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address still resonate today. 
• Lesser-known speeches like Hillary Clinton's "Human Rights Are Women's Rights" and Nora Ephron's commencement address are considered inspirational. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories .

While history is no stranger to crises, there are always leaders who come forward to help usher in more hopeful times by crafting and delivering impactful speeches. 

Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Maya Angelou have all delivered speeches that inspired millions — and some even changed the course of history. 

Take a look back at some of the most famous speeches from history that still move us today. 

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863 reminds people to honor those we have lost.

President Abraham Lincoln gave a relatively short speech at the deadliest battle site during the Civil War on November 19, 1863. Although it wasn't meant to be monumental, some call it the best speech in history. In it, Lincoln tells his people that they must remember each and every person who fought and died on the battlefield, especially because every human is created equal. 

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here," Lincoln says in the address. "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

In 1938, Lou Gehrig gave his "Luckiest Man" that celebrated the beauty of life.

On July 4, 1938, Lou Gehrig delivered a speech at Yankee Stadium after it was revealed that the baseball player had ALS. Although he was delivering devastating news to his fans in the speech, he instead focused on everything life has to offer. 

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," he said in the speech. "I have been in ballparks for 17  years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans … So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Winston Churchill delivered the "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech in 1940, showing the strength of the human spirit.

On June 4, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed Parliament during a particularly difficult time in World War II. Smithsonian Magazine called it "one of the most rousing and iconic addresses" of the era. In the speech, the prime minister told his people that they would fight together and use all their strength to defeat their enemies. 

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Churchill says in the famous speech . 

In 1942, Mahatma Gandhi gave his "Quit India" speech, which encouraged peaceful protests.

The day before the Quit India movement started, Mahatma Gandhi delivered an inspiring speech, on August 8, 1942 . In the speech, he told his people to resist the British government but to do so in a peaceful, organized manner. He focused on the benefits of a nonviolent uprising, which became the cornerstone of his beliefs. 

The most famous line from the speech is: "I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours."

John F. Kennedy delivered "The Decision to Go to The Moon" speech in 1961, proving humans know no bounds.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced to Congress and the world that the US was committed to sending an American to the moon. In the inspiring speech , the president explains the ambitious goal as one of necessity. 

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there,'" Kennedy said in his speech. "Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream Speech" in 1963 reminds people there is always something better on the horizon.

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., delivered what is arguably the most famous and most inspiring speech in American history. Before the historic March on Washington, King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and addressed the 250,000 attendees, calling for the end of discrimination and racism by dreaming about a brighter future. 

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice," he said in the speech. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."

In 1993, Maya Angelou read her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" at Bill Clinton's inauguration in an attempt to bring the global community together.

On the morning of President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993, poet Maya Angelou delivered a moving speech when she read out her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning." It was the first time a poem had been recited at the ceremony since 1961 . In it, Angelou touched upon topics of equality and inclusion, and she attempted to inspire the world to unite under these principles.

Part of the poem reads:

"The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree."

Hillary Clinton delivered the "Human Rights Are Women's Rights" speech in 1995, saying those who are suppressed also have a voice.

As the first lady, Hillary Clinton attended the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. She was pressured to water down her message, but instead, she delivered a moving speech that still resonates today. In it, she said women who are held back by sexist governments should be set free and heard. 

"If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all," Clinton said in the speech. "Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard."

Nora Ephron encouraged people to break the rules in her commencement address to Wellesley College in 1996.

While Nora Ephron is known for penning some of the most famous films in the '80s and '90s, she also made a legendary speech at the 1996 Wellesley College graduation ceremony . In it, she inspired women to break free of the mold placed on them. 

"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there," Ephron said in the speech. "And I also hope you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."

She also said, "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

In 1977, Harvey Milk gave his "Give Them Hope" speech, urging people to celebrate their differences and to hold on to messages of hope.

When he was running for local office in California, Harvey Milk delivered his "Give Them Hope" remarks as a stump speech . It was meant to rally supporters behind him, but it quickly became a speech of hope and celebration for the LGBT community. 

"And the young gay people in Altoona, Pennsylvanias, and the Richmond, Minnesotas, who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope," Milk said in his speech . "Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only are the gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the 'us-es.' The 'us-es' will give up."

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10 famous speeches in history that continue to stand the test of time

A great speech is something that combines persuasive writing, a comfort with public speaking , and a meaningful message to create an impression greater than the sum of its parts. There’s no one set of rules to govern the ideal speech, and plenty of people struggle with them even with teams of experts to help them out — just see the majority of speeches given by politicians. But once in a while, a truly great speaker and a truly great speech come together to create something that stands out and withstands the test of time, carrying meaning with it through generations even to those who weren’t yet born when it was given.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Demosthenes, queen elizabeth i, george washington, abraham lincoln, chief joseph, winston churchill, john f. kennedy, barack obama, more famous speeches to inspire you.

Great speeches are more than just rhetorical flourish or impressive performance — they’re also calls to action, able to persuade and embolden the listener. These speeches can be inspiring, informative, and instructive, whether you’re interested in learning more about history or working on a speech of your own .

We’ve rounded up 10 of history’s greatest speeches, including excerpts so you can learn about how the power of a great speech can last for years.

1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘s I Have a Dream speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, is one of the finest pieces of oratory in human history. It blended masterful, rich language with the oratorical technique of repetition and it was utterly fearless.

King would be dead by an assassin’s bullet less than five years after delivering his most famous speech. His words were no mere rhetoric; they were an affirmation of the value of human life and the expression of a cause for which he would give his own.

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ … “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

341 BCE ‘Third Philippic’

Though you may not have heard of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, consider the fact that one of history’s most famed speakers of all time, Cicero, cited his ancient forebear 300 years later. Demosthenes’ Third Philippic , so-called because it was the third speech he gave devoted to convincing his fellow Athenians to take up arms against the encroaching forces of Phillip of Macedon, literally led men to war. At the end of his speech, delivered in 341 BCE, the Athenian Assembly moved at once against their rival, spurred on by lines damning the past inaction of his fellow citizens:

“You are in your present plight because you do not do any part of your duty, small or great; for of course, if you were doing all that you should do, and were still in this evil case, you could not even hope for any improvement. As it is, Philip has conquered your indolence and your indifference; but he has not conquered Athens. You have not been vanquished, you have never even stirred.

1588 ‘Spanish Armada’ speech t o the troops at Tilbury

In 1588, English monarch Queen Elizabeth I gave one of the manliest speeches in history, even at one point, putting down her own body for being female. As the “mighty” Spanish Armada, a flotilla of some 130 ships, sailed toward Britain with plans of invasion, the queen delivered a rousing address at Tilbury, Essex, England. As it turned out, a storm and some navigational errors took care of the Spanish warships for the most part. Still, it was a bold speech that helped bolster a nation. This speech also made Queen Elizabeth famous for the armor she wore in front of her troops.

“I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: To which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.”

1783 Resignation speech

To grasp the true power of George Washington ‘s resignation as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military (then known as the Continental Army) on December 23, 1783, you have to go beyond the words themselves and appreciate the context. Washington was in no way obliged to resign his commission, but did so willingly and even gladly, just as he would later refuse a third term as president of the nation, establishing a precedent honored into the 1940s and thereafter enshrined in law. Despite being the most powerful man in the fledgling military and then becoming the most powerful man in the United States, the staid and humble Washington was never hungry for power for himself; he just happened to be the best man for the job(s).

Even in his last address as leader of the nation’s armed forces, Washington made it all about America, and not about himself:

“Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.”

1863 ‘Gettysburg Address’

There’s a reason many people consider the Gettysburg Address to be the best speech in American history: It probably is. In just 275 words on November 19, 1863, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Abraham Lincoln managed to express the following sentiments:

• America is both a place and a concept, both of which are worth fighting.
• Fighting is horrible, but losing is worse.
• We have no intention of losing.

Ironically, one line in Lincoln’s speech proved to be laughably inaccurate. Midway through the speech, he humbly said: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” In fact, the world continues to remember his brief yet very stirring address.

“In a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract …

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

1877 Surrender speech

On October 5, 1877, Nez Perce tribe leader Chief Joseph delivered a short, impromptu, and wrenching speech that many see as the lamentation of the end of an era for Native Americans and the lands that were stolen from them. Overtaken by the United States Army during a desperate multi-week retreat toward Canada, Chief Joseph surrendered to General Howard with this bleak, moving message:

“I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

1939 ‘Luckiest Man’ speech

No one wants a deadly disease named after them, but that’s what happened to baseball legend Lou Gehrig , who died at 37 after a brief battle with ALS, commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.” Following a career in which the Hall of Fame player earned many of baseball’s top honors and awards, Gehrig delivered one of the most touching speeches of the 20th century, a speech in which he brought comfort to those mourning his illness even as his health fell apart.

In essence, Gehrig told people not to worry about one dying man, but instead to celebrate all life had to offer as he listed all the wonderful things that occurred in his own life. In so doing, he brought solace to many and created a model of selflessness. Gehrig delivered this short speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17  years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans … “So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

1940 ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ speech

Winston Churchill delivered many superlative speeches in his day, including the 1946 address that created the term “Iron Curtain” to describe the boundary of Britain’s recent ally, the Soviet Union, and a 1940 speech praising the heroism of the British Royal Air Force in which he uttered the line: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”

But it was his bold and bolstering speech delivered on June 4, 1940, to the British Parliament’s House of Commons — commonly referred to as We Shall Fight on the Beaches — that most exemplifies the famed leader. These were more than just words — these were a promise to his nation that they were all in the fight wholeheartedly together and it was a heads-up to the Axis powers that attacking the Brits had been a bad idea.

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

1961 inaugural address

Much of President John F. Kennedy ‘s pithy 1,366-word inaugural address, delivered on January 20, 1961, was well-written and meaningful, but as often happens, his speech has stood the test of time thanks to one perfect phrase. Amidst an address filled with both hope and dire warnings (“Man holds in his hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life,” the latter being a clear reference to atomic weapons), he issued a direct appeal to Americans everywhere to stand up for their country. You know the line:

“And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address

When our future president – then a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois – Barack Obama delivered a 17-minute speech on the evening of July 27, 2004, at the Democratic National Convention endorsing presidential candidate John Kerry, the personal trajectory of one man and the history of an entire nation shifted dramatically. Already an up-and-coming politician gaining traction in his home state of Illinois, Obama’s keynote address that night transformed him into a national figure and paved the way for his journey to becoming the first POTUS of color. What was it about the speech that so moved the country?

Partly, it was simply the excellent writing, most of which Obama handled himself. Perhaps more so, it was the message of the speech, which spoke to the “abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation.” In short, Obama reminded us of who we were supposed to be as citizens of this nation. And for a flickering moment, many of us heard him.

“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. There’s not a Black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America … “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?”

While we’ve taken an in-depth look at some of history’s most famous speeches, the list goes much further than those 10. Here are a few more great speeches that helped shape history that still have the power to inspire.

• 1941 – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – Day of Infamy speech – Roosevelt’s address to Congress on December 8, 1941, came the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s best known for its opening line: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” The speech spurred Congress to declare war on Japan and thrust the U.S. into World War II.
• 1933 – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – First Inaugural Address – Considering FDR served four terms during the end of the Great Depression and through World War II, it stands to reason that he would have some pretty famous speeches. His first inaugural address from 1933 is also remembered for one powerful line. As he discussed his plan to pull the country out of the Great Depression, he uttered this iconic line: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself.”
• 1986 – President Ronald Reagan – Address to the Nation on the Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger – when Reagan addressed the country on the night of January 28, 1986, the U.S. was reeling from seeing the Space Shuttle Challenger explode, just seconds after launch, killing the crew, which included Christa McAuliffe, who was to be NASA’s first teacher in space. Reagan was to have delivered his State of the Union speech to Congress that night but canceled it in the wake of the Challenger disaster. The speech included these memorable words of condolence: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'”
• 2001 – President George W. Bush – Address to the nation after 9/11 –  The morning of September 11, 2001, Bush was at a Florida elementary school to meet with children. He would have no idea that the day would end with him addressing the country after the horrific terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. That night, Bush gave the country words of hope, saying that the attacks did nothing to damage the American spirit. “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” Bush said. “The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong.”

We hope you’re feeling more inspired and determined to make your own history after perusing this list. For more historical inspiration, check out ten of our favorite Black History films , a list of fantastic history books to read , a group of iconic photographs of people who changed history , and seven amazing books documenting LGBTQ+ history — not to mention the importance of historical heroes who have been often overlooked . However you intend to change your present and future, we wish you nothing but the best of luck.

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It used to be you didn't want to click on an email or link because it was a scammer pretending to be a prince trying to give away their money. Now, you never know if the meme or video you are about to click on is going to be someone trolling you into hearing Rick Astley's 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up. If you haven't been Rickrolled yet, tell us your secret. Embracing the iconic nature of the song, Rick Astley re-recorded the jam, but with a twist aimed at bringing awareness to a good cause.

There's animation, then there's Pixar. The animation studio owned by Disney revolutionized computer-generated entertainment in the late 1990s, and it has never looked back since. While Disney is known for bringing magic to the movie screen, Pixar's thematically rich stories and ultra-fleshed-out characters transcend the medium, making critics aware of the greatness that lies within CGI imagery. Pixar's reputation relied more on creativity and abstract, yet relatable concepts in its early years, while it's resided on the sequel content more in recent times. Whether you like one of the company's franchises or its standalone films more, you've surely been touched by the ethereal and effervescent style of Pixar. Here are the 10 best Pixar movies, ranked.

Great Talks Most People Have Never Heard

Not long ago, I came across a little-known speech titled, “You and Your Research”.

The speech had been delivered in 1986 by Richard Hamming, an accomplished mathematician and computer engineer, as part of an internal series of talks given at Bell Labs. I had never heard of Hamming, the internal lecture series at Bell Labs, or this particular speech. And yet, as I read the transcript, I came across one useful insight after another.

After reading that talk, I got to thinking… what other great talks and speeches are out there that I’ve never heard?

I’ve been slowly searching for answers to that question and the result is this list of my favorite interesting and insightful talks that are not widely known. You may see a few famous speeches on this list, but my guess is that most people are not aware of many of them—just as I wasn’t when I first started looking around.

As far as I know this is the only place where you can read transcripts of these speeches in one place.

Famous Speeches and Great Talks

This list is organized by presenter name and then speech topic. Click the links below to jump to a specific speech. On each page, you’ll find a full transcript of the speech as well as some additional background information.

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story”
• Jeff Bezos, “Statement by Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary”
• Jeff Bezos, “What Matters More Than Your Talents”
• John C. Bogle, “Enough”
• Brené Brown, “ The Anatomy of Trust “
• John Cleese, “Creativity in Management”
• William Deresiewicz, “Solitude and Leadership”
• Richard Feynman, “Seeking New Laws”
• Neil Gaiman, “Make Good Art”
• John W. Gardner, “Personal Renewal”
• Elizabeth Gilbert, “Your Elusive Creative Genius”
• Albert E. N. Gray,  “The Common Denominator of Success”
• Bill Gurley, “Runnin Down a Dream”
• Richard Hamming, “Learning to Learn”
• Richard Hamming, “You and Your Research”
• Steve Jobs, “2005 Stanford Commencement Address”
• Peter Kaufman,  “The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking”
• C.S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring”
• Admiral William H. McRaven, “Make Your Bed”
• Arno Rafael Minkkinen, “Finding Your Own Vision”
• Charlie Munger, “2007 USC Law School Commencement Address”
• Charlie Munger, “A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom”
• Charlie Munger, “How to Guarantee a Life of Misery”
• Charlie Munger, “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment”
• Nathan Myhrvold, “ Roadkill on the Information Highway “
• Randy Pausch, “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”
• Randy Pausch, “Time Management”
• Anna Quindlen,  “1999 Mount Holyoke Commencement Speech”
• John Roberts, “I Wish You Bad Luck”
• Sir Ken Robinson, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
• J.K. Rowling, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure”
• George Saunders, “Failures of Kindness”
• Claude Shannon, “Creative Thinking”
• BF Skinner, “How to Discover What You Have to Say”
• Jim Valvano, “Don’t Give Up”
• Bret Victor, “Inventing on Principle”
• David Foster Wallace, “This is Water”
• Art Williams, “Just Do It”
• Evan Williams,  “A Journey on the Information Highway”

This is an on-going project. If you know of another great talk, please contact me .

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How to write a speech that your audience remembers

Whether in a work meeting or at an investor panel, you might give a speech at some point. And no matter how excited you are about the opportunity, the experience can be nerve-wracking . 

But feeling butterflies doesn’t mean you can’t give a great speech. With the proper preparation and a clear outline, apprehensive public speakers and natural wordsmiths alike can write and present a compelling message. Here’s how to write a good speech you’ll be proud to deliver.

What is good speech writing?

Good speech writing is the art of crafting words and ideas into a compelling, coherent, and memorable message that resonates with the audience. Here are some key elements of great speech writing:

• It begins with clearly understanding the speech's purpose and the audience it seeks to engage. 
• A well-written speech clearly conveys its central message, ensuring that the audience understands and retains the key points. 
• It is structured thoughtfully, with a captivating opening, a well-organized body, and a conclusion that reinforces the main message. 
• Good speech writing embraces the power of engaging content, weaving in stories, examples, and relatable anecdotes to connect with the audience on both intellectual and emotional levels. 

Ultimately, it is the combination of these elements, along with the authenticity and delivery of the speaker , that transforms words on a page into a powerful and impactful spoken narrative.

What makes a good speech?

A great speech includes several key qualities, but three fundamental elements make a speech truly effective:

Clarity and purpose

Remembering the audience, cohesive structure.

While other important factors make a speech a home run, these three elements are essential for writing an effective speech.

The main elements of a good speech

The main elements of a speech typically include:

• Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your speech and grabs the audience's attention. It should include a hook or attention-grabbing opening, introduce the topic, and provide an overview of what will be covered.
• Opening/captivating statement: This is a strong statement that immediately engages the audience and creates curiosity about the speech topics.
• Thesis statement/central idea: The thesis statement or central idea is a concise statement that summarizes the main point or argument of your speech. It serves as a roadmap for the audience to understand what your speech is about.
• Body: The body of the speech is where you elaborate on your main points or arguments. Each point is typically supported by evidence, examples, statistics, or anecdotes. The body should be organized logically and coherently, with smooth transitions between the main points.
• Supporting evidence: This includes facts, data, research findings, expert opinions, or personal stories that support and strengthen your main points. Well-chosen and credible evidence enhances the persuasive power of your speech.
• Transitions: Transitions are phrases or statements that connect different parts of your speech, guiding the audience from one idea to the next. Effective transitions signal the shifts in topics or ideas and help maintain a smooth flow throughout the speech.
• Counterarguments and rebuttals (if applicable): If your speech involves addressing opposing viewpoints or counterarguments, you should acknowledge and address them. Presenting counterarguments makes your speech more persuasive and demonstrates critical thinking.
• Conclusion: The conclusion is the final part of your speech and should bring your message to a satisfying close. Summarize your main points, restate your thesis statement, and leave the audience with a memorable closing thought or call to action.
• Closing statement: This is the final statement that leaves a lasting impression and reinforces the main message of your speech. It can be a call to action, a thought-provoking question, a powerful quote, or a memorable anecdote.
• Delivery and presentation: How you deliver your speech is also an essential element to consider. Pay attention to your tone, body language, eye contact , voice modulation, and timing. Practice and rehearse your speech, and try using the 7-38-55 rule to ensure confident and effective delivery.

While the order and emphasis of these elements may vary depending on the type of speech and audience, these elements provide a framework for organizing and delivering a successful speech.

How to structure a good speech

You know what message you want to transmit, who you’re delivering it to, and even how you want to say it. But you need to know how to start, develop, and close a speech before writing it. 

Think of a speech like an essay. It should have an introduction, conclusion, and body sections in between. This places ideas in a logical order that the audience can better understand and follow them. Learning how to make a speech with an outline gives your storytelling the scaffolding it needs to get its point across.

Here’s a general speech structure to guide your writing process:

• Explanation 1
• Explanation 2
• Explanation 3

How to write a compelling speech opener

Some research shows that engaged audiences pay attention for only 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Other estimates are even lower, citing that people stop listening intently in fewer than 10 minutes . If you make a good first impression at the beginning of your speech, you have a better chance of interesting your audience through the middle when attention spans fade. 

Implementing the INTRO model can help grab and keep your audience’s attention as soon as you start speaking. This acronym stands for interest, need, timing, roadmap, and objectives, and it represents the key points you should hit in an opening. 

Here’s what to include for each of these points: 

• Interest : Introduce yourself or your topic concisely and speak with confidence . Write a compelling opening statement using relevant data or an anecdote that the audience can relate to.
• Needs : The audience is listening to you because they have something to learn. If you’re pitching a new app idea to a panel of investors, those potential partners want to discover more about your product and what they can earn from it. Read the room and gently remind them of the purpose of your speech. 
• Timing : When appropriate, let your audience know how long you’ll speak. This lets listeners set expectations and keep tabs on their own attention span. If a weary audience member knows you’ll talk for 40 minutes, they can better manage their energy as that time goes on. 
• Routemap : Give a brief overview of the three main points you’ll cover in your speech. If an audience member’s attention starts to drop off and they miss a few sentences, they can more easily get their bearings if they know the general outline of the presentation.
• Objectives : Tell the audience what you hope to achieve, encouraging them to listen to the end for the payout. 

Writing the middle of a speech

The body of your speech is the most information-dense section. Facts, visual aids, PowerPoints — all this information meets an audience with a waning attention span. Sticking to the speech structure gives your message focus and keeps you from going off track, making everything you say as useful as possible.

Limit the middle of your speech to three points, and support them with no more than three explanations. Following this model organizes your thoughts and prevents you from offering more information than the audience can retain. 

Using this section of the speech to make your presentation interactive can add interest and engage your audience. Try including a video or demonstration to break the monotony. A quick poll or survey also keeps the audience on their toes. 

Wrapping the speech up

To you, restating your points at the end can feel repetitive and dull. You’ve practiced countless times and heard it all before. But repetition aids memory and learning , helping your audience retain what you’ve told them. Use your speech’s conclusion to summarize the main points with a few short sentences.

Try to end on a memorable note, like posing a motivational quote or a thoughtful question the audience can contemplate once they leave. In proposal or pitch-style speeches, consider landing on a call to action (CTA) that invites your audience to take the next step.

How to write a good speech

If public speaking gives you the jitters, you’re not alone. Roughly 80% of the population feels nervous before giving a speech, and another 10% percent experiences intense anxiety and sometimes even panic. 

The fear of failure can cause procrastination and can cause you to put off your speechwriting process until the last minute. Finding the right words takes time and preparation, and if you’re already feeling nervous, starting from a blank page might seem even harder.

But putting in the effort despite your stress is worth it. Presenting a speech you worked hard on fosters authenticity and connects you to the subject matter, which can help your audience understand your points better. Human connection is all about honesty and vulnerability, and if you want to connect to the people you’re speaking to, they should see that in you.

1. Identify your objectives and target audience

Before diving into the writing process, find healthy coping strategies to help you stop worrying . Then you can define your speech’s purpose, think about your target audience, and start identifying your objectives. Here are some questions to ask yourself and ground your thinking : 

• What purpose do I want my speech to achieve? 
• What would it mean to me if I achieved the speech’s purpose?
• What audience am I writing for? 
• What do I know about my audience? 
• What values do I want to transmit? 
• If the audience remembers one take-home message, what should it be? 
• What do I want my audience to feel, think, or do after I finish speaking? 
• What parts of my message could be confusing and require further explanation?

2. Know your audience

Understanding your audience is crucial for tailoring your speech effectively. Consider the demographics of your audience, their interests, and their expectations. For instance, if you're addressing a group of healthcare professionals, you'll want to use medical terminology and data that resonate with them. Conversely, if your audience is a group of young students, you'd adjust your content to be more relatable to their experiences and interests. 

3. Choose a clear message

Your message should be the central idea that you want your audience to take away from your speech. Let's say you're giving a speech on climate change. Your clear message might be something like, "Individual actions can make a significant impact on mitigating climate change." Throughout your speech, all your points and examples should support this central message, reinforcing it for your audience.

4. Structure your speech

Organizing your speech properly keeps your audience engaged and helps them follow your ideas. The introduction should grab your audience's attention and introduce the topic. For example, if you're discussing space exploration, you could start with a fascinating fact about a recent space mission. In the body, you'd present your main points logically, such as the history of space exploration, its scientific significance, and future prospects. Finally, in the conclusion, you'd summarize your key points and reiterate the importance of space exploration in advancing human knowledge.

5. Use engaging content for clarity

Engaging content includes stories, anecdotes, statistics, and examples that illustrate your main points. For instance, if you're giving a speech about the importance of reading, you might share a personal story about how a particular book changed your perspective. You could also include statistics on the benefits of reading, such as improved cognitive abilities and empathy.

6. Maintain clarity and simplicity

It's essential to communicate your ideas clearly. Avoid using overly technical jargon or complex language that might confuse your audience. For example, if you're discussing a medical breakthrough with a non-medical audience, explain complex terms in simple, understandable language.

7. Practice and rehearse

Practice is key to delivering a great speech. Rehearse multiple times to refine your delivery, timing, and tone. Consider using a mirror or recording yourself to observe your body language and gestures. For instance, if you're giving a motivational speech, practice your gestures and expressions to convey enthusiasm and confidence.

8. Consider nonverbal communication

Your body language, tone of voice, and gestures should align with your message . If you're delivering a speech on leadership, maintain strong eye contact to convey authority and connection with your audience. A steady pace and varied tone can also enhance your speech's impact.

9. Engage your audience

Engaging your audience keeps them interested and attentive. Encourage interaction by asking thought-provoking questions or sharing relatable anecdotes. If you're giving a speech on teamwork, ask the audience to recall a time when teamwork led to a successful outcome, fostering engagement and connection.

10. Prepare for Q&A

Anticipate potential questions or objections your audience might have and prepare concise, well-informed responses. If you're delivering a speech on a controversial topic, such as healthcare reform, be ready to address common concerns, like the impact on healthcare costs or access to services, during the Q&A session.

By following these steps and incorporating examples that align with your specific speech topic and purpose, you can craft and deliver a compelling and impactful speech that resonates with your audience.

Tools for writing a great speech

There are several helpful tools available for speechwriting, both technological and communication-related. Here are a few examples:

• Word processing software: Tools like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or other word processors provide a user-friendly environment for writing and editing speeches. They offer features like spell-checking, grammar correction, formatting options, and easy revision tracking.
• Presentation software: Software such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides is useful when creating visual aids to accompany your speech. These tools allow you to create engaging slideshows with text, images, charts, and videos to enhance your presentation.
• Speechwriting Templates: Online platforms or software offer pre-designed templates specifically for speechwriting. These templates provide guidance on structuring your speech and may include prompts for different sections like introductions, main points, and conclusions.
• Rhetorical devices and figures of speech: Rhetorical tools such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, and parallelism can add impact and persuasion to your speech. Resources like books, websites, or academic papers detailing various rhetorical devices can help you incorporate them effectively.
• Speechwriting apps: Mobile apps designed specifically for speechwriting can be helpful in organizing your thoughts, creating outlines, and composing a speech. These apps often provide features like voice recording, note-taking, and virtual prompts to keep you on track.
• Grammar and style checkers: Online tools or plugins like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor help improve the clarity and readability of your speech by checking for grammar, spelling, and style errors. They provide suggestions for sentence structure, word choice, and overall tone.
• Thesaurus and dictionary: Online or offline resources such as thesauruses and dictionaries help expand your vocabulary and find alternative words or phrases to express your ideas more effectively. They can also clarify meanings or provide context for unfamiliar terms.
• Online speechwriting communities: Joining online forums or communities focused on speechwriting can be beneficial for getting feedback, sharing ideas, and learning from experienced speechwriters. It's an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and improve your public speaking skills through collaboration.

Remember, while these tools can assist in the speechwriting process, it's essential to use them thoughtfully and adapt them to your specific needs and style. The most important aspect of speechwriting remains the creativity, authenticity, and connection with your audience that you bring to your speech.

5 tips for writing a speech

Behind every great speech is an excellent idea and a speaker who refined it. But a successful speech is about more than the initial words on the page, and there are a few more things you can do to help it land.

Here are five more tips for writing and practicing your speech:

1. Structure first, write second

If you start the writing process before organizing your thoughts, you may have to re-order, cut, and scrap the sentences you worked hard on. Save yourself some time by using a speech structure, like the one above, to order your talking points first. This can also help you identify unclear points or moments that disrupt your flow.

2. Do your homework

Data strengthens your argument with a scientific edge. Research your topic with an eye for attention-grabbing statistics, or look for findings you can use to support each point. If you’re pitching a product or service, pull information from company metrics that demonstrate past or potential successes. 

Audience members will likely have questions, so learn all talking points inside and out. If you tell investors that your product will provide 12% returns, for example, come prepared with projections that support that statement.

3. Sound like yourself

Memorable speakers have distinct voices. Think of Martin Luther King Jr’s urgent, inspiring timbre or Oprah’s empathetic, personal tone . Establish your voice — one that aligns with your personality and values — and stick with it. If you’re a motivational speaker, keep your tone upbeat to inspire your audience . If you’re the CEO of a startup, try sounding assured but approachable. 

4. Practice

As you practice a speech, you become more confident , gain a better handle on the material, and learn the outline so well that unexpected questions are less likely to trip you up. Practice in front of a colleague or friend for honest feedback about what you could change, and speak in front of the mirror to tweak your nonverbal communication and body language .

5. Remember to breathe

When you’re stressed, you breathe more rapidly . It can be challenging to talk normally when you can’t regulate your breath. Before your presentation, try some mindful breathing exercises so that when the day comes, you already have strategies that will calm you down and remain present . This can also help you control your voice and avoid speaking too quickly.

How to ghostwrite a great speech for someone else

Ghostwriting a speech requires a unique set of skills, as you're essentially writing a piece that will be delivered by someone else. Here are some tips on how to effectively ghostwrite a speech:

• Understand the speaker's voice and style : Begin by thoroughly understanding the speaker's personality, speaking style, and preferences. This includes their tone, humor, and any personal anecdotes they may want to include.
• Interview the speaker : Have a detailed conversation with the speaker to gather information about their speech's purpose, target audience, key messages, and any specific points they want to emphasize. Ask for personal stories or examples they may want to include.
• Research thoroughly : Research the topic to ensure you have a strong foundation of knowledge. This helps you craft a well-informed and credible speech.
• Create an outline : Develop a clear outline that includes the introduction, main points, supporting evidence, and a conclusion. Share this outline with the speaker for their input and approval.
• Write in the speaker's voice : While crafting the speech, maintain the speaker's voice and style. Use language and phrasing that feel natural to them. If they have a particular way of expressing ideas, incorporate that into the speech.
• Craft a captivating opening : Begin the speech with a compelling opening that grabs the audience's attention. This could be a relevant quote, an interesting fact, a personal anecdote, or a thought-provoking question.
• Organize content logically : Ensure the speech flows logically, with each point building on the previous one. Use transitions to guide the audience from one idea to the next smoothly.
• Incorporate engaging stories and examples : Include anecdotes, stories, and real-life examples that illustrate key points and make the speech relatable and memorable.
• Edit and revise : Edit the speech carefully for clarity, grammar, and coherence. Ensure the speech is the right length and aligns with the speaker's time constraints.
• Seek feedback : Share drafts of the speech with the speaker for their feedback and revisions. They may have specific changes or additions they'd like to make.
• Practice delivery : If possible, work with the speaker on their delivery. Practice the speech together, allowing the speaker to become familiar with the content and your writing style.
• Maintain confidentiality : As a ghostwriter, it's essential to respect the confidentiality and anonymity of the work. Do not disclose that you wrote the speech unless you have the speaker's permission to do so.
• Be flexible : Be open to making changes and revisions as per the speaker's preferences. Your goal is to make them look good and effectively convey their message.
• Meet deadlines : Stick to agreed-upon deadlines for drafts and revisions. Punctuality and reliability are essential in ghostwriting.
• Provide support : Support the speaker during their preparation and rehearsal process. This can include helping with cue cards, speech notes, or any other materials they need.

Remember that successful ghostwriting is about capturing the essence of the speaker while delivering a well-structured and engaging speech. Collaboration, communication, and adaptability are key to achieving this.

Give your best speech yet

Learn how to make a speech that’ll hold an audience’s attention by structuring your thoughts and practicing frequently. Put the effort into writing and preparing your content, and aim to improve your breathing, eye contact , and body language as you practice. The more you work on your speech, the more confident you’ll become.

The energy you invest in writing an effective speech will help your audience remember and connect to every concept. Remember: some life-changing philosophies have come from good speeches, so give your words a chance to resonate with others. You might even change their thinking.

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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• Speech on Life

Speech on Life for Students in English

Life is a precious gift. It is the sum of one's work, journey, dreams, joys, sorrows, successes, and battles for change. Life is more of a journey than a destination. It must be lived peacefully and happily. Seeking the meaning and purpose of life is the biggest search in the life of a man, and the questions about the meaning of human life are age-old. Life, however, still has some attractive elements, offering one a ray of hope and positivity, each passing day.

We have individuals, families, relatives, and friends who make our lives unique, worth living, and make us feel that our lives are special. Our lives are challenging, but those challenges are what make it worth living.

Short One Minute Speech On Life Is A Gift

God has given us the most precious gift; it is life. It is up to us how to use it. It depends on us, or it depends on our behavior. Therefore, this is a very relevant topic to be discussed in schools, universities, workplaces or public places. We are of course worried that our young people are now wasting their lives and time-consuming reckless behavior. Every day, we should thank God for giving us this life and another day to achieve our goals. No one is like you and will never be there, so cherish your uniqueness.

What surprises me is that I often hear people blaming God for what they don’t have and cursing their liveliness, but they do not know that their lives are valuable if they work hard to make it worthwhile. The value of life comes from such thinking. Only through the love of family and friends can life become better. We also make our lives more beautiful and fulfilling by completing our responsibilities in our family, work, community and the whole world.

Long and Short English Speech About Life for Students and Children

Long speech on life in english for students.

Good morning to all of you present here. Today, I am here to share my views on Life. Life is a continuous phase that will have to stop someday. It is all about building yourself and encouraging yourself. It is only possible to grasp life backward, so it must be lived forward. Life itself is a golden chance to inspire others while you live and also get inspired by others too. It is not the number of years you live but how well you live that matters. Our lives are still threatened by the fear of death. Sooner or later, every person has to face death, but that doesn't mean it should stop us from living life to the fullest or achieving our goals. An individual is only wise when he/she is ready to meet destiny when it comes, but he/she enjoys every little bit before that moment. Human life is an incredibly precious gift.

Every snapshot of human life provides us with an opportunity to act to build and connect. Every second opens the way for us to receive presents. The truth is that life presents us with both positive and negative situations. What is extremely important is the way we respond to it. No one, like you, is born into the universe, and no one will ever be, so honor your freedom. With lessons, struggles, heartache, and special moments, life is nothing but a journey. In the end, it will get us to our destination, our meaning in life. The road isn't always going to be a plane; in fact, we're going to face many challenges along our journeys.

Our bravery, talents, vulnerabilities, and confidence will always be checked by these challenges. We may meet obstacles along our way that will come between the paths, and we are doomed to take them. We must overcome these barriers to be on the right path. Perhaps these barriers are simply gifts in disguise, but at the moment we don't understand that. The secret of life is better understood by those who are not so intensely attached to something. The best way to cherish life is with our family and friends. Our family was the first set of people who were present since the beginning of our journey and nourished us.

Our friends are the people who chose us, out of several others, to care for and enjoy moments with. It is ultimately the affection we give and the affection we receive from our loved ones that makes life beautiful and joyous. I'll say, eventually, that we can make life worthwhile. That life can be made beautiful with the help of our family and friends. By discharging our duties in our families, at work, community and the world at large, life can be more beautiful and purposeful.

Short Speech About Life for Children 

Good morning to all of you present here. Today I am here to deliver a Speech on Life. Life is valuable. It is a gift to you from God. It's so special that there's no one else like you on Earth.   Existence, again, is a chance. It is a chance for good to be achieved. Therefore, it does not matter how long you live; how well you live is all that counts. And how many lives you, with love and encouragement, will affect.

Another idea is that death still shadows life. Everybody has to face it. He or she is a wise man or woman who, when it comes, is prepared to meet death. The secret of life is, surprisingly, best revealed to those who are not bound by their possessions. They are unaffected by worry and life's changing fortunes. They are individuals who do not live by adding things to life, but by weighing their lives by things they can do without.

Life is stewardship above all. It is a belief that is entrusted to you. Such an understanding of life makes you keenly aware that for all the time, talent, treasure, and opportunity you are blessed with. It is this hope which makes living life worth it. And it's family and friendships nurtured in loving relationships that make life beautiful. By understanding one's role in one's family, or one's place of work, or society at large; and playing that role well, life is also made purposeful.

Life is a journey, not a destination

Life is not a destination, but it is a journey that involves lessons, hardships, and some special moments. It will take us to our final destination, our life's purpose. The road will not always be a plane; we will face numerous challenges throughout our journey.

These difficulties will always put our bravery, strengths, flaws, and faith to the test. Along the way, we may come across obstacles that stand in the way of the path we are meant to follow.

We must overcome these challenges to stay on the right path. Sometimes these roadblocks are blessings in disguise, but we do not realize it at the time. The secret of life is best understood by people who are not extremely connected to anything.

As a result, people are clueless about their worries and changing fortunes in life. They are those who do not measure their lives in terms of materialistic stuff, but rather in terms of the people they cannot live without.

10 Lines for English Speech About Life

Life is a very precious gift granted to us by God, and we must be grateful to him for giving us such a precious gift.

Challenges are part of life, and our lives will become dull and uneasy without them.

God has given us plenty of positive things in our lives, including the beauty of nature.

We are granted positivity and satisfaction in life by trees, animals, plants, sunshine, etc.

Nature tells us that, against all the odds, we can be happy and hopeful.

We need to set certain targets and try hard and faithfully to accomplish them to make our lives valuable.

To earn blessings and good wishes from our elders and mates, we must do something good very often.

Family is an integral part of our lives, and we need to take care of them and always respect them.

Secondly, our friends are an important part of our lives, apart from family, as they support us without any conditions.

We must always acknowledge the positive things in our lives that are happening.

FAQs on Speech on Life

1. How to feel satisfied with your Life?

When one knows the meaning of life, that is, that life is not about winning or losing, but rather about living one's life to the fullest, one can be satisfied.

2. What do you mean by a decent life?

A decent life is when you see life as a gift rather than a burden, and you have more good days than bad days. 

3. Why is meaningful life important?

A meaningful life ties people to a greater sense of purpose and value, allowing them to contribute positively not only to their own personal and spiritual development but also to society and human civilization as a whole. As a result, a meaningful life inspires wise choices and provides a sense of purpose.

15 Powerful Speech Opening Lines (And How to Create Your Own)

Hrideep barot.

• Public Speaking , Speech Writing

Powerful speech opening lines set the tone and mood of your speech. It’s what grips the audience to want to know more about the rest of your talk.

The first few seconds are critical. It’s when you have maximum attention of the audience. And you must capitalize on that!

Instead of starting off with something plain and obvious such as a ‘Thank you’ or ‘Good Morning’, there’s so much more you can do for a powerful speech opening (here’s a great article we wrote a while ago on how you should NOT start your speech ).

To help you with this, I’ve compiled some of my favourite openings from various speakers. These speakers have gone on to deliver TED talks , win international Toastmaster competitions or are just noteworthy people who have mastered the art of communication.

After each speaker’s opening line, I have added how you can include their style of opening into your own speech. Understanding how these great speakers do it will certainly give you an idea to create your own speech opening line which will grip the audience from the outset!

Alright! Let’s dive into the 15 powerful speech openings…

Note: Want to take your communications skills to the next level? Book a complimentary consultation with one of our expert communication coaches. We’ll look under the hood of your hurdles and pick two to three growth opportunities so you can speak with impact!

1. Ric Elias

Opening: “Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack. It sounds scary. Well I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D.”

How to use the power of imagination to open your speech?

Putting your audience in a state of imagination can work extremely well to captivate them for the remainder of your talk.

It really helps to bring your audience in a certain mood that preps them for what’s about to come next. Speakers have used this with high effectiveness by transporting their audience into an imaginary land to help prove their point.

When Ric Elias opened his speech, the detail he used (3000 ft, sound of the engine going clack-clack-clack) made me feel that I too was in the plane. He was trying to make the audience experience what he was feeling – and, at least in my opinion, he did.

When using the imagination opening for speeches, the key is – detail. While we want the audience to wander into imagination, we want them to wander off to the image that we want to create for them. So, detail out your scenario if you’re going to use this technique.

Make your audience feel like they too are in the same circumstance as you were when you were in that particular situation.

2. Barack Obama

Opening: “You can’t say it, but you know it’s true.”

3. Seth MacFarlane

Opening: “There’s nowhere I would rather be on a day like this than around all this electoral equipment.” (It was raining)

How to use humour to open your speech?

When you use humour in a manner that suits your personality, it can set you up for a great speech. Why? Because getting a laugh in the first 30 seconds or so is a great way to quickly get the audience to like you.

And when they like you, they are much more likely to listen to and believe in your ideas.

Obama effortlessly uses his opening line to entice laughter among the audience. He brilliantly used the setting (the context of Trump becoming President) and said a line that completely matched his style of speaking.

Saying a joke without really saying a joke and getting people to laugh requires you to be completely comfortable in your own skin. And that’s not easy for many people (me being one of them).

If the joke doesn’t land as expected, it could lead to a rocky start.

Keep in mind the following when attempting to deliver a funny introduction:

• Know your audience: Make sure your audience gets the context of the joke (if it’s an inside joke among the members you’re speaking to, that’s even better!). You can read this article we wrote where we give you tips on how you can actually get to know your audience better to ensure maximum impact with your speech openings
• The joke should suit your natural personality. Don’t make it look forced or it won’t elicit the desired response
• Test the opening out on a few people who match your real audience. Analyze their response and tweak the joke accordingly if necessary
• Starting your speech with humour means your setting the tone of your speech. It would make sense to have a few more jokes sprinkled around the rest of the speech as well as the audience might be expecting the same from you

4. Mohammed Qahtani

Opening: Puts a cigarette on his lips, lights a lighter, stops just before lighting the cigarette. Looks at audience, “What?”

5. Darren Tay

Opening: Puts a white pair of briefs over his pants.

How to use props to begin your speech?

The reason props work so well in a talk is because in most cases the audience is not expecting anything more than just talking. So when a speaker pulls out an object that is unusual, everyone’s attention goes right to it.

It makes you wonder why that prop is being used in this particular speech.

The key word here is unusual . To grip the audience’s attention at the beginning of the speech, the prop being used should be something that the audience would never expect. Otherwise, it just becomes something that is common. And common = boring!

What Mohammed Qahtani and Darren Tay did superbly well in their talks was that they used props that nobody expected them to.

By pulling out a cigarette and lighter or a white pair of underwear, the audience can’t help but be gripped by what the speaker is about to do next. And that makes for a powerful speech opening.

6. Simon Sinek

Opening: “How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions?”

7. Julian Treasure

Opening: “The human voice. It’s the instrument we all play. It’s the most powerful sound in the world. Probably the only one that can start a war or say “I love you.” And yet many people have the experience that when they speak people don’t listen to them. Why is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world?”

How to use questions to open a speech?

I use this method often. Starting off with a question is the simplest way to start your speech in a manner that immediately engages the audience.

But we should keep our questions compelling as opposed to something that is fairly obvious.

I’ve heard many speakers start their speeches with questions like “How many of us want to be successful?”

No one is going to say ‘no’ to that and frankly, I just feel silly raising my hand at such questions.

Simon Sinek and Jullian Treasure used questions in a manner that really made the audience think and make them curious to find out what the answer to that question is.

What Jullian Treasure did even better was the use of a few statements which built up to his question. This made the question even more compelling and set the theme for what the rest of his talk would be about.

So think of what question you can ask in your speech that will:

• Set the theme for the remainder of your speech
• Not be something that is fairly obvious
• Be compelling enough so that the audience will actually want to know what the answer to that question will be

8. Aaron Beverley

Opening: Long pause (after an absurdly long introduction of a 57-word speech title). “Be honest. You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

How to use silence for speech openings?

The reason this speech opening stands out is because of the fact that the title itself is 57 words long. The audience was already hilariously intrigued by what was going to come next.

But what’s so gripping here is the way Aaron holds the crowd’s suspense by…doing nothing. For about 10 to 12 seconds he did nothing but stand and look at the audience. Everyone quietened down. He then broke this silence by a humorous remark that brought the audience laughing down again.

When going on to open your speech, besides focusing on building a killer opening sentence, how about just being silent?

It’s important to keep in mind that the point of having a strong opening is so that the audience’s attention is all on you and are intrigued enough to want to listen to the rest of your speech.

Silence is a great way to do that. When you get on the stage, just pause for a few seconds (about 3 to 5 seconds) and just look at the crowd. Let the audience and yourself settle in to the fact that the spotlight is now on you.

I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something about starting the speech off with a pure pause that just makes the beginning so much more powerful. It adds credibility to you as a speaker as well, making you look more comfortable and confident on stage. 

If you want to know more about the power of pausing in public speaking , check out this post we wrote. It will give you a deeper insight into the importance of pausing and how you can harness it for your own speeches. You can also check out this video to know more about Pausing for Public Speaking:

9. Dan Pink

Opening: “I need to make a confession at the outset here. Little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret. Something that I’m not particularly proud of. Something that in many ways I wish no one would ever know but that here I feel kind of obliged to reveal.”

10. Kelly McGonigal

Opening: “I have a confession to make. But first I want you to make a little confession to me.”

How to use a build-up to open your speech?

When there are so many amazing ways to start a speech and grip an audience from the outset, why would you ever choose to begin your speech with a ‘Good morning?’.

That’s what I love about build-ups. They set the mood for something awesome that’s about to come in that the audience will feel like they just have to know about.

Instead of starting a speech as it is, see if you can add some build-up to your beginning itself. For instance, in Kelly McGonigal’s speech, she could have started off with the question of stress itself (which she eventually moves on to in her speech). It’s not a bad way to start the speech.

But by adding the statement of “I have a confession to make” and then not revealing the confession for a little bit, the audience is gripped to know what she’s about to do next and find out what indeed is her confession.

11. Tim Urban

Opening: “So in college, I was a government major. Which means that I had to write a lot of papers. Now when a normal student writes a paper, they might spread the work out a little like this.”

12. Scott Dinsmore

Opening: “8 years ago, I got the worst career advice of my life.”

How to use storytelling as a speech opening?

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” Steve Jobs

Storytelling is the foundation of good speeches. Starting your speech with a story is a great way to grip the audience’s attention. It makes them yearn to want to know how the rest of the story is going to pan out.

Tim Urban starts off his speech with a story dating back to his college days. His use of slides is masterful and something we all can learn from. But while his story sounds simple, it does the job of intriguing the audience to want to know more.

As soon as I heard the opening lines, I thought to myself “If normal students write their paper in a certain manner, how does Tim write his papers?”

Combine such a simple yet intriguing opening with comedic slides, and you’ve got yourself a pretty gripping speech.

Scott Dismore’s statement has a similar impact. However, just a side note, Scott Dismore actually started his speech with “Wow, what an honour.”

I would advise to not start your talk with something such as that. It’s way too common and does not do the job an opening must, which is to grip your audience and set the tone for what’s coming.

13. Larry Smith

Opening: “I want to discuss with you this afternoon why you’re going to fail to have a great career.”

14. Jane McGonigal

Opening: “You will live 7.5 minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.”

How to use provocative statements to start your speech?

Making a provocative statement creates a keen desire among the audience to want to know more about what you have to say. It immediately brings everyone into attention.

Larry Smith did just that by making his opening statement surprising, lightly humorous, and above all – fearful. These elements lead to an opening statement which creates so much curiosity among the audience that they need to know how your speech pans out.

This one time, I remember seeing a speaker start a speech with, “Last week, my best friend committed suicide.” The entire crowd was gripped. Everyone could feel the tension in the room.

They were just waiting for the speaker to continue to know where this speech will go.

That’s what a hard-hitting statement does, it intrigues your audience so much that they can’t wait to hear more! Just a tip, if you do start off with a provocative, hard-hitting statement, make sure you pause for a moment after saying it.

Silence after an impactful statement will allow your message to really sink in with the audience.

Related article: 5 Ways to Grab Your Audience’s Attention When You’re Losing it!

15. Ramona J Smith

Opening: In a boxing stance, “Life would sometimes feel like a fight. The punches, jabs and hooks will come in the form of challenges, obstacles and failures. Yet if you stay in the ring and learn from those past fights, at the end of each round, you’ll be still standing.”

How to use your full body to grip the audience at the beginning of your speech?

In a talk, the audience is expecting you to do just that – talk. But when you enter the stage and start putting your full body into use in a way that the audience does not expect, it grabs their attention.

Body language is critical when it comes to public speaking. Hand gestures, stage movement, facial expressions are all things that need to be paid attention to while you’re speaking on stage. But that’s not I’m talking about here.

Here, I’m referring to a unique use of the body that grips the audience, like how Ramona did. By using her body to get into a boxing stance, imitating punches, jabs and hooks with her arms while talking – that’s what got the audience’s attention.

The reason I say this is so powerful is because if you take Ramona’s speech and remove the body usage from her opening, the entire magic of the opening falls flat.

While the content is definitely strong, without those movements, she would not have captured the audience’s attention as beautifully as she did with the use of her body.

So if you have a speech opening that seems slightly dull, see if you can add some body movement to it.

If your speech starts with a story of someone running, actually act out the running. If your speech starts with a story of someone reading, actually act out the reading.

It will make your speech opening that much more impactful.

Related article: 5 Body Language Tips to Command the Stage

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Final Words

So there it is! 15 speech openings from some of my favourite speeches. Hopefully, these will act as a guide for you to create your own opening which is super impactful and sets you off on the path to becoming a powerful public speaker!

But remember, while a speech opening is super important, it’s just part of an overall structure.

If you’re serious about not just creating a great speech opening but to improve your public speaking at an overall level, I would highly recommend you to check out this course: Acumen Presents: Chris Anderson on Public Speaking on Udemy. Not only does it have specific lectures on starting and ending a speech, but it also offers an in-depth guide into all the nuances of public speaking. 

Being the founder of TED Talks, Chris Anderson provides numerous examples of the best TED speakers to give us a very practical way of overcoming stage fear and delivering a speech that people will remember. His course has helped me personally and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to learn public speaking. 

No one is ever “done” learning public speaking. It’s a continuous process and you can always get better. Keep learning, keep conquering and keep being awesome!

Lastly, if you want to know how you should NOT open your speech, we’ve got a video for you:

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English Speech About Life [1,2,3 Minutes]

Short Speech About Life- Life is a gift of God and the most mysterious phenomenon for humanity. Scientists are not completely sure about what life is. There is a lot of poetry and literature work around the globe. Here below are given some speeches About life. Choose the best one for you.

Short Speech About Life- 1 Minute

Before starting my speech, I would like to wish greetings to all the people present here. It is a pleasure for me to deliver a speech about life. I hope you will like the words I formulated in my speech.

“Life” – The word contains only four alphabets but no one can assess its vastness in reality. In fact, most scientists are not pretty sure what life is. Every human has a different life story. Some of us experience a lot of good happenings in life whereas others experience the exact opposite.

But it is necessary for anyone to understand the fact that “life is full of joy, sorrow, ecstasy, difficulties, happiness , sorrow, victory, defeat etc. All of these elements are vital parts of a good life.

I use to experience every moment of my life whether it is a positive or a negative one. Because experiences make you bold and strong compared to the previous version of you.

-Thank you all

2 minute Speech About Life Challenges

Life is an element that makes a being “living” making it possible to be called “ A Living Being “. Everyone’s life is full of good experiences and bad challenges. Good experiences are loved by all and bad challenges are not. But Bad they also are necessary for us because they make us a better person compared to the previous version of us.

Furthermore, sometimes life is full of difficulties and most people don’t like difficulties and hurdles. But A person who has not encountered challenges in life can never achieve success. In fact, one should be always ready to face adversity and challenges in life as they are the reason behind one’s personal growth .

So, I live my life to the fullest. I use to experience every moment of my life whether it is a positive or a negative one. Because experiences make you bold and strong compared to the previous version of you.

-Thank you all.

Short Speech About Life- 3 Minute

Before I deliver my speech. I would like to thank you all for having me a chance at this great opportunity. And also I wish you all the best greetings.

There is no doubt that life is wonderful and so it’s every moment. Philosophers say that life is a journey where we are encountered sorrow, joy, hurdles, happiness, success, failures etc. Definitely, it is a beautiful journey with a lot of good and bad experiences.

For me, life is a celebration of being alive, but one should always be active to face adversity and difficulties. A person who has not faced difficulties in life can never achieve success. There is no human being on earth who has not experienced struggle, difficulty or failure.

I personally believe that life becomes the way one thinks about it. I remember a proverb that can be perfectly fitted here- “ When you change the way you look at things, The things you look at change “. The same goes for life- When you change the way you look at your life , life changes the way you want. This single line of words can turn your point of view about life upside down.

But hardships and challenges in life are also essential for growth. In fact , The difficult times or the bad experiences are the best teachers for oneself. They teach us life lessons that are taught by none.

You can use some Quotes About life to make this speech more personalised.

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Free Speech as a Right and a Way of Life

We must understand the philosophical foundations of the right to free speech to apply it to contemporary controversies.

Subscribe to the New Ideal podcast here .

Editor’s note: In May 2024, the Ayn Rand Institute Press released The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom , featuring four in-depth essays by Tara Smith previously published in law reviews, and one by Onkar Ghate previously published in New Ideal . The book includes one essay by Gregory Salmieri written exclusively for the book. Drawing on Ayn Rand’s theory of individual rights, Salmieri’s piece identifies the philosophical foundations of the right to free speech and applies the principle to a number of controversies about free speech today (regarding “cancel culture,” social media platforms, and public education). Because it offers such fundamental guidance for addressing crucial cultural and political questions, we are republishing a newly edited version of it here.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech from government interference, and much of the discussion of free speech in America revolves around this legal context. But there is a widespread view that to take advantage of these legal protections (and, indeed, to sustain them), we also need a culture of free speech . 1 Thus, self-professed champions of free speech inveigh not only against violations of the First Amendment but also against a wide range of private actions and policies. These include disruptive protests that silence speakers; content moderation by social media companies; sanctions by universities, corporations, and other institutions against those who express certain opinions; and “cancel culture” (i.e., attempts to trigger such sanctions by stigmatizing people for the opinions they’ve expressed).

Citing John Stuart Mill, these professed champions of free speech worry about an intellectually stifling environment in which all but a narrow range of opinions are stigmatized and driven to society’s margins. As an alternative, the Millians urge various nongovernmental institutions to adopt the sort of content-neutral policies that First Amendment jurisprudence requires of the government. The resulting “culture of free speech” they envision is one in which employers hire, fire, and promote without regard for employees’ opinions on controversial societal issues; universities take no cognizance of students’ opinions in deciding whether to admit and retain them, social media platforms make no discriminations about the content they host; and other businesses and organizations likewise refrain from discriminating on ideological grounds. Because, as we will see, such policies of neutrality are rarely tenable, those who aspire to such a free speech culture come to see their aspiration as a noble but unattainable ideal. They are led to the conclusion that freedom of speech cannot be an absolute – that is merely one value to be traded off against others.

Freedom of speech is a right – “a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” 3 Rights can be violated by private actors as well as by governments, and the government’s function is to secure rights against such violations. Some of the nongovernmental actions decried by professed champions of free speech are violations of the right to free speech, but most are not – quite the reverse: they are exercises of this right. A genuine culture of free speech is one in which these acts are recognized as instances of free speech, rather than departures from it. It is a culture in which individuals value one another’s freedom not only to express opinions but to judge them, and to decide whom to associate with (or disassociate from) on the basis of such judgments. It is a culture in which individuals guard this freedom and utilize it to satisfy their needs for both ideological diversity and ideological alignment , forming a wide range of relationships, institutions, and communities with different purposes and different terms of association.

This is what I argue in this essay. In the first section, I elaborate on the nature of free speech as an individual right. In the second, I discuss government’s responsibility to respect and secure this right. In the remaining two sections, I discuss the value of intellectual diversity and the idea of a culture of free speech, rejecting the prevailing, collectivist approach to these issues and articulating an individualist alternative.

Freedom of Speech as an Individual Right

On the evening of May 25, 1892, a mob ransacked the offices of the Free Speech , a Memphis newspaper run by Ida B. Wells and James L. Fleming. The mob ran “Fleming out of town, destroyed the type and furnishings of the office, and left a note saying that anyone trying to publish the paper again would be punished with death.” 4 Wells describes the personal impact this way: “They had destroyed my paper, in which every dollar I had in the world was invested. They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth.” 5 The “hint” she mentions had come five days earlier, in an editorial she had written about the lynchings of eight black men over the course of the preceding week. Some of these men had been killed on the basis of “the old thread-bare lie that Negro men assault white women,” and she warned that if the white Southerners continued to use this pretext for lynchings, “public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.” 6 On the morning of May 25, the Daily Commercial responded in an editorial that purported to speak for the white population of Memphis: “we have had enough” of “the fact that a black scoundrel is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies.” Later that day, the Evening Scimitar (which assumed that Wells’s editorial had been written by a man) proposed a course of action:

If the negroes themselves do not apply the remedy without delay it will be the duty of those whom he has attacked to tie the wretch who utters these calumnies to a stake at the intersection of Main and Madison Sts., brand him in the forehead with a hot iron and perform upon him a surgical operation with a pair of tailor’s shears. 7

Freedom of speech is freedom from the evil that was perpetrated against Wells, Fleming, Paty, Rushdie, and Charlie Hebdo staff, and against everyone who was terrified into silence by their attackers. This freedom consists in being able to speak one’s mind without fear that others will respond forcibly against one’s person or property. In the cases we have discussed, the force was wielded by terrorists; too often (as we’ll discuss) it is wielded by governments.

Force needn’t be deadly to violate the freedom of speech. Had Paty and Rushdie’s assailants sought merely to injure them, as punishment for speaking their minds, the same principle would have been violated, and others like Paty and Rushdie would still have been put in fear for their safety. Likewise, the mob that ransacked Wells and Fleming’s office would have violated their freedom of speech even if they hadn’t also threatened their victims’ lives. Wells and Fleming were violated when the mob destroyed the property they had devoted so much of their lives to creating. Their freedom of speech, in particular, was violated because the specific property that was destroyed – the paper’s type and furnishings – was their means of promulgating their ideas.

This same principle applies, though on a smaller scale, when self-styled “protesters” disrupt speeches they disapprove of. The venues for such speeches have generally been obtained by the speaker (or some sponsoring organization) for the purpose of hosting the speech, and others are admitted as an audience to hear it. To abuse one’s admission by disrupting the event is to trespass and to forcibly prevent the speaker (and sponsors) from using the means which are rightfully theirs for disseminating their ideas. The principle applies also when protesters forcibly interfere without entering the venue, as by creating excessive noise from an adjacent property to drown out the speaker or distract the audience. These actions too constitute forcible interference with the speaker’s use of his property to disseminate his ideas.

All the actions I’ve described as violating the freedom of speech would be violations of the victims’ rights even if taken for some purpose other than silencing them. Murder, vandalism, trespass, intimidation, harassment, and the interference with people’s peaceful enjoyment of their property are violations of rights, regardless of the motive, and the right to free speech doesn’t afford speakers any special protection that they would have lacked had they remained silent. No one is entitled to initiate force against anyone in the first place, and everyone has a right to be secure in his person and property. The right to free speech is merely the recognition that voicing an opinion as such never infringes on anyone else’s rights. The rights to liberty and property include the liberty to share one’s opinions and to use one’s resources to disseminate those opinions – e.g., by publishing a newspaper or delivering a lecture in a rented hall.

One person’s rights cannot be violated by another’s refusal to deal with him. Rights are principles for organizing society to enable individuals to interact only consensually, rather than by forcing themselves on one another. An interaction is consensual when each party participates voluntarily, under no threat from the other (except the “threat” of withholding such benefits as might result from the interaction). 12 The fundamental principle underlying free societies is that all relationships should be consensual – that no one may initiate the use of force, and that force may only be used in retaliation.

A right is a principle defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action in a social context . 13 Freedom means freedom from other people who might interfere with one’s actions. So, what rights define is the scope of an individual’s freedom to act unilaterally, without others’ consent. Since rights are reciprocal, rightful actions cannot constitute interference with, or require the cooperation of, others. “Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.” 14 The only obligation one person’s rights can impose on another is that of noninterference. Thus a person’s right to free speech cannot require other people’s participation as sponsors, enablers, or audience. It cannot entitle him to use their property as a platform or to harass them (demanding a hearing that they do not consent to give him). He has the freedom to express his ideas to an audience that’s willing to listen in a forum he owns (or that he uses with the owner’s consent). The right cannot be violated by anyone’s refusing to contribute to, listen to, or otherwise condone the relevant speech (even by refusing to continue associating with the speaker). The right cannot be violated by any form of boycott, blacklisting, ostracism, “cancellation,” or other social penalty. 15 The right can be violated only by initiating force against the speaker (including against his property). Whether such social penalties are just or unjust in a given case, any claim by the penalized that his rights have been violated is simply his assertion of an imagined right to force himself on people who want nothing to do with him.

For example, consider what Ida Wells came to think was the ultimate motive for destroying the Free Speech :

For the first time in their lives the white people of Memphis had seen earnest, united action by Negroes which upset economic and business conditions. They had thought the excitement would die down; that Negroes would forget and become again, as before, the wealth producers of the South – the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the servants of white men. But the excitement kept up, the colored people continued to leave, business remained at a standstill, and there was still a dearth of servants to cook their meals and wash their clothes and keep their homes in order, to nurse their babies and wait on their tables, to build their houses and do all classes of laborious work. […] The whites had killed the goose that laid the golden egg of Memphis prosperity and Negro contentment; yet they were amazed that colored people continued to leave the city by scores and hundreds. In casting about for the cause of all this restlessness and dissatisfaction the leaders concluded that the Free Speech was the disturbing factor. They were right. They felt that the only way to restore “harmony between the races” would be to get rid of the Free Speech . 16

This example highlights the power of disassociating from others as a means of both punishing injustice and protecting oneself from it. Disassociation is especially powerful when practiced by a large group, as in a boycott or blacklist. If an individual has any rights at all, he has this right to disassociate for any reason, including disagreement with another’s speech. The individual doesn’t lose this right when there are many others exercising it along with him, or when he encourages others to do so (as Wells did in her newspaper). 17 In short, there is a right to participate in what is now called “cancellation.”

Perhaps the most influential denier of the right to disassociate from others on the basis of their opinions is John Stuart Mill. This makes Mill an influential opponent of the right to free speech. 18 His reputation as a stalwart champion of free speech rests on his insights about an independent thinker’s need to engage with a wide spectrum of ideas – something that cannot be done in an environment where heterodox opinions are not expressed. I’ll turn to these aspects of Mill’s thought in the final two sections of this essay. What’s relevant for my present purposes is that he denies the crucial distinction between violations of the right to free speech and social sanctions of unpopular opinions (which sanctions are, in fact, exercises of this right).

The principle of individual rights marks the distinction between consensual interactions between individuals and interactions in which some individuals force themselves upon others. The fundamental right – the right to one’s own life – defines and sanctions the individual’s “freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life.” 22 This means the individual’s freedom to live by his own judgment, using (and developing) his own means in support of his own ends (while respecting others’ freedom to live likewise). The freedom of speech is the freedom to express one’s opinions in the course of leading such a life. This includes one’s freedom to associate with others in support of their speech or to withdraw one’s sanction from their opinions by disassociating with them (in whole or in part). Conversely, the right to freedom of speech does not give everyone with anything to say a license to force himself upon those who do not wish to be his audience, his promoters, or his enablers. This is true however large the proportion of society that does not wish to deal with him and however unjust or imprudent their attitude may be.

Freedom of speech is never a license to violate other rights. Threats and incitement to violence no more fall within the protection of this right than do the instructions a mafia boss gives to a hitman. They may express or imply an opinion (as do all utterances, publications, and actions), but their essence is to initiate or facilitate a course of action, rather than to participate in an exchange of ideas. This is true of the passages quoted earlier from the Daily Commercial and Evening Scimitar that called for Wells’s lynching. These are not mere expressions of opinion: they are conspiracy to murder and mayhem. 23 The same applies to social media posts that targeted supposed blasphemers like Paty for attacks by Islamist terrorists. 24 Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie amounted to an act of war against the free world, and it ought to have been treated as such by world governments. 25 No doubt there are cases where it is difficult to determine whether an utterance is essentially an expression of an opinion (which would fall within the protection of the right to free speech) or constitutes a threat, fraud, defamation, harassment or other initiation of force (which would fall outside the realm of free speech). 26 But the difficulty in such cases is not a matter of balancing free speech against other potentially conflicting rights or interests. It is, rather, a matter of determining the nature of the utterance, given the full context in which it was made.

Commenting on the events at Berkeley, Ayn Rand wrote:

[T]here is no justification, in a civilized society, for the kind of mass civil disobedience that involves the violation of the rights of others – regardless of whether the demonstrators’ goal is good or evil. The end does not justify the means. No one’s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. […] The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength – i.e. , plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. 30

A society is free to the extent that it is governed by the principle of individual rights, and the freedom of speech is nothing more or less than individuals’ right to be free from forcible interference in (or in retaliation for) their expression of their ideas. Mobs like those that Rand describes (and which we see again proliferating throughout American society) are instances of such forcible interference with individuals’ freedom to speak and to live.

The Government’s Responsibility to Respect and Secure the Right to Free Speech

Because freedom of speech can be violated only by the initiation of physical force, which always violates other rights as well, special laws are not generally needed to secure this freedom. It is secured, rather, by the general laws that protect us from attacks on (and threats to) our persons and property. 31 When governments fail to protect the right to freedom of speech from infringement by private parties, it is by failing to prosecute those parties for violating these other laws – a topic we’ll return to later. Because separate laws are not needed to protect free speech from private actors, and because governments themselves often violate this right, free speech is sometimes characterized specifically as a right individuals hold against the government. Onkar Ghate, for example, has described free speech as “an individual’s right to express his ideas without governmental interference, that is, without governmental suppression or censorship.” 32 Such characterizations are natural especially in the United States where so much of the discussion of free speech centers on the First Amendment.

As should be clear from the previous section, I conceive of the right more broadly as a right to be free from forcible interference in (or in retaliation for) expressing one’s ideas, whether this force is initiated by a government or by private actors. However, much of the need to conceptualize it as a distinct right comes from the fact that governments so often pass laws abridging it. To defend the right, we must be on guard against the confusions and rationalizations that lead lawmakers and their constituencies to think it is proper to wield force to silence people, or to compel them to support or refrain from supporting the expression of certain ideas.

In all such fields, the only position consistent with the right to free speech is abolitionism. The entire public education system (including public financing of higher education) should be abolished, as should such agencies as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. This abolition could take the form of simply eliminating the present institutions in the expectation that private ones will arise (or expand) to perform those of their functions that are legitimate. Or it could take the form of privatizing the existing institutions by cutting them off from governmental funds and authority. Presently there is no political constituency for abolition (of either sort). This unhappy fact gives rise to many questions for advocates of free speech: Of the various policies these institutions might adopt on various issues, which are most oppressive, and which are less so? What near-term goals and strategies should a movement advocating freedom in education (or scientific research) adopt? How should an individual teacher, student, or researcher navigate the existing system? These are all questions about how to navigate and mitigate an ongoing violation of individual rights, and they must be regarded as such if we are to have any hope of answering them in a way that is consistent with the principle of free speech.

In addition to violating freedom of speech by censoring and by establishing opinions, a government also violates the freedom of speech when it restricts individuals’ freedom to disassociate from speech and speakers they disapprove of. Consider, for example, the recent Florida and Texas laws (currently under judicial stays) that prohibit social media platforms from removing or deemphasizing users or posts based on their viewpoints. 37 Under the pretext of defending users’ free speech, the laws compel the companies to promote, participate in, or condone speech that they have every right to disassociate from.

Governments can also violate the right to free speech by exercising their legitimate powers in a way that discriminates against individuals for holding or voicing certain opinions. A government violates freedom of speech, for example, if it enforces noise ordinances more vigorously against people who are noisily expressing unpopular opinions than it does against people who noisily express favored opinions.

In addition to actively violating individuals’ freedom of speech in any of the ways we have discussed, governments are sometimes complicit in violations by private parties. This happens when a government fails to vigorously prosecute those who initiate force to silence others, thereby allowing these criminals to impose a reign of terror over those who disagree with them. Such governmental inaction can be motivated by officials’ (or voters’) sympathy with the terrorists. This is likely what happened in the attack on the Free Speech in Memphis. As far as I have been able to ascertain, no one was prosecuted for that attack, just as no one was prosecuted for committing the lynchings on which the Free Speech had reported. Wells believed there was no prosecution because “every white man of any standing in [Memphis] knew of the plan and consented to the lynching,” and that “the criminal court judge himself was one of the lynchers. Suppose we had the evidence; could we get it before that judge? Or a grand jury of white men who had permitted it to be?” 40 If Wells’s belief was correct, then it was not just a private mob, but also the municipal government of Memphis, that was responsible for murdering the lynched men and for destroying the Free Speech .

To protect our rights, including freedom of speech, governments must vigorously investigate potential conspiracies to violate these rights, whenever reasonable suspicion exists. However, such suspicion often arises in connection with organizations, movements, and subcultures devoted to controversial opinions – just the sorts of group whom we have reason to worry that the government will persecute on the grounds of their heterodox opinions. Examples in American history include the Ku Klux Klan, the American Communist Party, various factions within the civil rights movement and the countercultural movements of the 1960s and ’70s, and certain mosques and other institutions serving religious minorities. These organizations have been subject to investigation and counterintelligence operations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and there is a well-documented record of abuses on the FBI’s part, which makes civil libertarians rightly concerned about such investigations. 45 To prevent abuses, procedures must be established to ensure that investigations of heterodox groups are indeed investigations (rather than attempts to harass or influence the groups) and that they are properly predicated on evidence (in accordance with standards that are applied uniformly to all ideological communities).

Defenders of free speech should not engage in knee-jerk calls for, or reactions against, investigations into heterodox groups. What is needed here, as in all areas of law, is objectivity – which means well-defined methods and standards for such investigations and prosecutions, and legal remedies for those who have been unjustly targeted. In the quest for such objectivity many difficult questions will arise, but these questions are not specific to freedom of speech. They are persistent concerns throughout the structure of a justice system wherever prejudices, ideological or otherwise, may lurk. For example, even when freedom of speech is not involved, prejudices can lead authorities to overlook (or underprioritize) crimes against members of disfavored groups or to infringe on the rights of suspects from these same groups. When forming any legal system, such concerns can be addressed by erecting checks and balances of various sorts, but that doesn’t mean fundamental rights such as the right to free speech are being balanced against one another. Rather it is governmental resources and the incentives and powers of various investigative bodies and legal parties that must be balanced in order to preserve the rights of all concerned.

The right to freedom of speech (like any other right) does not create a zone of anarchy in which a government may not function or investigate. 47 Rather, the right defines a zone in which an individual may act unilaterally, and it obligates government to take all necessary actions to secure the individual’s freedom of action against forcible interference by others. 48 The government’s function requires it to operate everywhere within a society, but to do so in single-minded pursuit of its proper function, constrained by well-defined rules ensuring that, in endeavoring to protect one individual’s freedom, it does not intrude on anyone else’s.

Because the proper function of government is limited to securing rights, any government that transgresses this limit (e.g., by providing services such as education, transportation, or healthcare) necessarily violates rights. We’ve discussed how the government specifically violates the freedom of speech when it provides services that involve the promulgation of ideas, such as public education, public broadcasting, or the public financing of research. It also violates rights when it operates public spaces where people can congregate to discuss and disseminate ideas. Since the government is an agent of everyone in the society, the use of governmental resources to facilitate any speech by private parties, violates dissenters’ right to disassociate from that speech. This rights violation is compounded when a government favors the dissemination of some ideas over others. Therefore, the First Amendment is properly interpreted to demand ideological neutrality from the government in such matters as deciding what sorts of speech are permitted on public property.

By contrast, private individuals (or nongovernmental institutions) do not limit anyone’s freedom of speech when their policies lack the ideological neutrality we rightly demand of the government. Publishers, broadcasters, social media companies, and private educational institutions do not infringe on anyone’s freedom when deciding to whom they will grant or deny use of their platforms. Likewise, employers, service providers, customers, and financiers cannot violate anyone’s freedom by their decisions to deal with some parties and not others. This is true even when these decisions are made on ideological grounds, and even when they are made unjustly. Far from being infringements of free speech, such decisions are alwaysexercises of this freedom, since the freedom to speak includes the freedom to support speech of which one approves and to withdraw one’s support from speech (and speakers) of which one disapproves. Even foolish or unjust policies adopted by nongovernmental actors concerning speech fall squarely within the right to free speech, in the same ways and for the same reasons that false or unjust speech falls within the protection of this right. Because of this, any use of state power to compel or encourage private institutions to adopt a policy of ideological neutrality violates the right to free speech (and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

The Value of Intellectual Diversity

Among those who grasp that private individuals and institutions have the right to engage in ideological discrimination, many still think that there is some moral imperative for employers, and such institutions as social media companies, communications utilities, financial institutions, and private universities to nonetheless observe something like the ideological neutrality that the First Amendment demands of government agencies. It is widely held that institutions that value free speech should abstain from discriminating among their associates (employees, customers, partners, etc.) on the grounds of their opinions, because upholding ideologically neutral terms of association will foster diversity and a culture of free speech(both within the relevant institution and in the larger society of which it is a part).

This is a mistake. It is true that ideological diversity is valuable in many contexts, and there may be some specific organizations whose missions would be best served by a policy of ideological neutrality, but general presumptions in favor of such policies drop the context that gives rise to this value and amount to demands that organizations sacrifice their missions. Rather than being moral absolutes, intellectual diversity and welcoming heterodoxy are potential values to be traded off against others in crafting worthwhile associations. Using the term “free speech” for these suggests that free speech itself – the right to free speech – is not an absolute, but just one of many competing claims that must be pragmatically balanced against one another. In order to defend actual free speech, therefore, we must conceptualize intellectual diversity and the practice of welcoming heterodoxy as values distinct from this principle.

We can begin by considering John Stuart Mill’s eloquent account of why we each need to be conversant with ideas very different from our own:

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion . . . Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them . . . He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. 49

Mill’s point is that for one’s convictions to constitute knowledge, as opposed to mere opinion, one must have engaged with the arguments against those convictions, and doing this requires encountering the strongest of these arguments presented as powerfully as possible by sincere advocates. This implies that any context in which a particular view has been wholly excluded from consideration is destructive to knowledge, even in cases where the excluded view is false . Such contexts undermine one’s ability to form genuine knowledge. (The situation is even worse, of course, if the excluded view turns out to be true.) Since knowledge requires considering contrasting ideas, a knower requires an intellectually diverse environment.

Moreover, since reasoning requires following the evidence wherever it leads, genuine reasoning is incompatible with the attempt to uphold any dogma. Someone whose thinking is governed by the premise that she must reach a certain conclusion and not another, or that she must not question a certain premise, is not endeavoring to know what’s true. Only free thinking – where the range of admissible conclusions hasn’t been fixed in advance – is genuine thinking. A person cannot, therefore, function as a thinker insofar as she is dependent on maintaining a position within a social institution, which position is contingent on her reaching (or not reaching) specific conclusions.

All the values we seek from human relationships derive ultimately from the thinking of each party. This is true for every sort of association – for business partnerships, commercial transactions, employment relations, friendships, marriages, clubs, educational institutions, etc. All genuine thinking is thinking for oneself , and it is to be expected that differences of opinion will emerge when individuals think for themselves, even on issues where only one answer can be correct. Thus, disagreement is inevitable in any worthwhile relationship or organization, and people cannot work well or live well insofar as they depend on associations that are contingent on their toeing a party line. This is why social environments that welcome differences of opinion are valuable: they support independent thinking, which is the source of all the values we seek to gain from one another.

Such an intellectual environment is a value to each of us as individuals, and we must each pursue it in our own associations and in the context of all our other values – a context that includes the value of the uniformity of opinion that underlies any joint endeavor. However, the values of intellectual diversity and welcomeness to heterodoxy are generally discussed in collectivistic terms and in a way that drops this crucial context. Institutions such as schools, social media companies, providers of financial and communications services, and employers are regarded as societal resources which must be run in certain ways to fulfill a societal need to welcome (or tolerate) heterodoxy. This is the view that generally lies behind the calls for such institutions to embrace “free speech.” I will discuss some of the controversies regarding “free speech culture” and the policies of such institutions in my next section. But let’s first consider how we as individuals living in a free society might pursue the value of an intellectual environment that exposes us to diverse ideas and that welcomes any heterodox conclusions we may reach.

Each of us has much to gain from interacting (directly or indirectly) with people who hold ideas with which we disagree, and therefore we each have reason to support, patronize, or participate in institutions (schools, forums, social groups, libraries, etc.) that enable such interactions. However, individuals will differ in their specific needs for intellectual diversity and how these needs relate to their other values and concerns. We should, therefore, expect there to be a variety of institutions catering differently to different people in different contexts.

For example, a biology researcher will want access to a library or bookstore stocked with a wide range of books in her field, including many that she disagrees with. She’ll likely be more interested in disagreements of detail (e.g., about the evolutionary history of a specific organism) than in works advocating for creationism, phrenology, or race science, but she’ll want access to these, too, on occasion. She may, however, want works expressing some of these views to be excluded from the library she visits with her child. She’ll likely prefer to work for an employer who welcomes the forthright expression of disagreements on scientific issues, but she may find certain approaches to biological research so misguided that she sees no point in working for or with their proponents. Because she’ll be motivated to work with those collaborators who can most help advance her research, she probably won’t be much interested in their political or social views, and she’ll probably prefer an employer who doesn’t generally discriminate on such grounds, because she knows such discrimination could prevent her from working with people who might have a lot to offer. However, she may find certain views so abhorrent that she’d prefer a workplace that excludes their proponents entirely. When she’s looking for an advocacy organization or political party to join, she might prioritize robust ideological alignment; but she may be (largely or wholly) unconcerned with the political, social, or religious views of her grocer or swim instructor. There are different purposes for which our biologist might want to use social media – to connect with colleagues in her field, to monitor current events or follow the debates of the day, to connect with old friends and share anecdotes, etc. For different uses she might prefer different sites with different content policies.

Every individual will form some such constellation of values and attitudes, placing different weight on uniformity or diversity of opinions in different contexts. Some constellations of values will be irrational, unjust, and self-destructive. But many different constellations will be fully rational, especially if held by people in different circumstances with different levels of knowledge, different resources, and different goals. Among those constellations that are less than fully rational, some will go wrong in relatively small ways, whereas others will be foolish and vicious. If all these individuals with their different constellations of values concerning ideological alignment and diversity are secure in their rights, such that each can choose to deal with each of the others or not, they will be able to use this freedom to negotiate terms of association that work for them.

Thus, in a free society, we should expect different organizations and institutions to emerge reflecting different values. Since (for the reasons Mill well described) knowledge requires some engagement with the full range of opinion on contentious subjects, those who value knowledge will create market demand for libraries, bookstores, and forums of various sorts that enable access to and dissemination of even the most disfavored views. But other forums will try to avoid offending anyone, and there will be everything in between.

Every cooperative endeavor presupposes specific points of agreement. For example, if our biologist seeks a collaborator for a research project on a specific organism’s evolutionary history, a Young Earth creationist wouldn’t be suitable, because the project presupposes the theory of evolution. Her project will also presuppose many more specific premises about the outlines of life on earth, about the specific species she’s studying, about which research methods are promising, etc., and someone who disagrees with these presuppositions would not be suitable. This is true even though, as a biologist, she might benefit from being exposed to challenges to her presuppositions. If she lived in a society in which the theory of evolution was forcibly insulated from criticism, that would make it difficult for her to know that the theory is true (because she would be prevented from finding, engaging with, and evaluating the best arguments against the theory). Likewise, if despite living in a society with evolution skeptics, the biologist never gave a moment’s thought to their view (and, in this case, it doesn’t take much more than a moment), she may not be justified in her confidence in the presuppositions of her field. The same holds for the more specific presuppositions of her specific research project, many of which are bound to be controversial within her field. For her to be rationally confident in her own position, she needs to be free to learn about and consider alternatives, and she needs to take advantage of that freedom. But part of taking full advantage of that freedom is rejecting alternative approaches which she thinks are mistaken and building a research project based on the ideas and methods she judges to be right. As we’ve framed the example, pursuing this project will require finding a like-minded collaborator who agrees with her on the relevant points.

Just as her project would be undermined by a collaborator whose ideas were inconsistent with the biological premises underlying her project, so would it be undermined by a collaborator whose opinions prevented him from interacting with her respectfully. His viewing her as incompetent or dishonest would make him unfit for the role. This is true whether he views her this way because of some specific belief about her as an individual, or because he holds some such generalization as “women are no good at science,” or “white people are exploiters,” or “only researchers who studied at Harvard understand punctuated equilibrium.” Our biologist cannot afford to be indifferent to potential collaborators’ opinions on such matters, and there is not always a bright line to be drawn between such opinions and related political, religious, or ideological convictions. Of course, the biologist’s project could also suffer if she rejects a potential collaborator because she falsely infers from his membership in a certain church or preference for a certain political candidate that he won’t respect her or share the relevant scientific convictions.

In choosing a collaborator, she needs to find someone who agrees with her about what’s needed to further the project, and she needs to allow such disagreements as are compatible with (and conducive to) this joint undertaking. Just which disagreements fit this bill will depend on innumerable factors, some of which may be idiosyncratic to the people involved. For example, if the biologist and potential collaborator have especially good interpersonal skills, they may be able to work together despite certain disagreements that would doom another pair of collaborators. Similarly, a pair of collaborators who are especially good at resisting confirmation bias might be needlessly slowed down by internal disagreements of a sort that another pair might need to help them avoid this cognitive pitfall.

There is no principle demanding that our biologist close her eyes to a potential collaborator’s opinions (or any special subclass of his opinions), nor would it be prudent for her to do so. The relevant principles are that she cannot rationally expect any collaborator to agree with her on everything or on nothing , and she should not place more value on any agreements or disagreements than is warranted by the full context of her own values, purposes, and circumstances.

Everything we’ve said about this one researcher’s relation to a potential collaborator applies also to all of the relationships inherent in any large organization – such as a business, a university, or a social network. Each such organization has its own mission and values, which must be implemented in its policies and corporate culture if it is to be successful. And each individual associated with the organization will approach the association from the standpoint of his own hierarchy of values. An organization that demanded too much agreement would have trouble finding and attracting suitable associates, and those it did attract would be unable to do their best work. But an organization would also undermine itself by welcoming associates whose opinions are incompatible with its purpose and values. For any organization, there will be opinions that are directly incompatible with the organization’s mission – as, for example, opposition to abortion rights is incompatible with the mission of Planned Parenthood, and atheism with the mission of the Catholic Church. There will also be opinions that are incompatible with the sort of corporate culture the organization regards as necessary to its mission. For most organizations this will include a culture of mutual respect that could be undermined, for example, by the opinion that people of African descent are stupid or that people of European descent are oppressors.

For almost any role in any group or organization, there are things that someone would be within his rights to say, but that would make him unsuited for that role, such that the organization could not tolerate this speech without undermining its purpose. Such speech is within the person’s rights in that it would be wrong for anyone (whether a governmental actor or a private party) to forcibly prevent him from saying it. But this right does not obligate the organization to allow the speech on its platform or to associate with the speaker. For example, many social media sites that fancy themselves free-speech forums do not allow users to post pornographic content, even though such content is (properly) legal. And it makes sense for the platforms to exclude pornography, given the sorts of communities they’re trying to build. Likewise, a law firm may have strong reasons not to retain an associate who has publicly voiced sympathy with the October 7 attacks on Israel – doubly so if it serves many Jewish clients who would interpret these remarks as antisemitic (as well as generally vile). 51 And a university may not wish to employ a teacher whose racist remarks (voiced outside of class) raise questions about her ability to treat all students with respect and judge them objectively. All of these potentially disqualifying sorts of speech fall within the speaker’s freedom of speech, in that it would be wrong for governments or private individuals to retaliate against them forcibly. But in each case, there’s a reason for the organization to make such speech grounds for disassociation. In some cases, there are also reasons pulling in the opposite direction.

Because organizations differ in their missions and constituencies, it should be expected that they will adopt different policies and develop different cultures, with some welcoming a wider range of opinions than do others. There are some approaches to this issue that would be irrational, unjust, and self-defeating, but there are a range of different approaches by which organizations could rationally pursue a valid mission and attempt to attract and retain associates. How wide a range of opinions an organization welcomes among its employees or associates (and what policies it institutes regarding expressions of these opinions in various contexts) no more reflects its degree of commitment to free speech than the variety of a retailer’s wares reflects the degree of its commitment to free trade.

Such variation in the policies and cultures of organizations is an expression of the freedoms of speech and association and a consequence of the pursuit by free individuals of their values. These values include (but are not limited to) the value of an environment that welcomes and fosters intellectual diversity. It is up to each of us to exercise these freedoms to seek these values for ourselves.

Individualists who share Mill’s concerns about an intellectually stifling uniformity of opinion can work to create new institutions (institutes, businesses, universities, libraries, journals, grant-making bodies, etc.) to foster heterodoxy. There are many forms such institutions can take. For example, there are organizations, like the Ayn Rand Institute, dedicated to promoting specific ideas (or research programs) that lie outside the ideological mainstream. A heterodoxy-promoting individualist might support the work of some such organizations, because he thinks their ideas (whether he agrees with them or not) fill an important gap in the discourse. Our heterodoxy-supporting individualist could also support publications like the Journal of Controversial Ideas that try to provide a home for ideas that have little in common except for falling far outside of the mainstream in one direction or another. 52 Or he could try to forge an institution that facilitates exchange between people of differing viewpoints, making room for marginalized views without catering specifically to them. Examples of this approach include Discourse magazine, the Academy of Ideas (https://academyofideas.org.uk/), and the new University of Austin.

Finally, the individualist looking to support intellectual diversity can work to create institutions that facilitate the wide and rapid sharing of content, so that speakers of all sorts can more easily connect with an audience. By any measure, the most historically successful initiative of this last sort is the internet. The World Wide Web and most of its social media platforms were created by people who were motivated in part (at least) by the idea of empowering a wider range of people to share and discover ideas.

Anyone worried about a lack of intellectual diversity today should reflect that no person in history has had as easy access to as wide a range of ideas as anyone can find for free on YouTube, X or Reddit. Many of the people today who resent mainstream cultural institutions for marginalizing the opinions they’ve been exposed to on social media would have, in earlier eras, remained wholly ignorant of opinions outside of the mainstream. The specific currents of censoriousness in the world today are largely caused by the ease of exchanging ideas online. Some are backlashes by cultural elites against the mainstreaming of previously marginal streams of thought. Others, such as the “Twitter mobs” that have called for the hasty “cancellation” of those who offend against various au courant leftist strictures, are made up of scolds who have organized through social media to exert social pressure that would not have been possible to them in the past. These forms of censoriousness (however unjust some of them may be) are aspects of an intellectually diverse society, rather than signs that we lack one.

A Culture of Free Speech

I have treated intellectual diversity (and the sort of environment that fosters it) as one value among others that free individuals can pursue in their associations with one another. But, as I mentioned earlier, most discussions of this value proceed as if the needs of society as a whole place special obligations on certain societal institutions to embody or foster a “culture of free speech.” To develop an individualist alternative, I’ll focus on two sorts of institutions that have loomed large in recent free-speech controversies: social media platforms and universities. I’ll expose the collectivist premises dominating thought about these institutions and I’ll explain the individualist perspective on these issues – the perspective that, when embodied in a society’s institutions and mores, constitutes a genuine culture of free speech.

It is striking that Musk, who prides himself on his “first-principles thinking” in business, did not define the “free speech principles” to which he thinks Twitter should adhere. The nearest thing I have found to a public exposition of these principles in the months surrounding the acquisition is this statement:

By “free speech,” I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people. 55

This is no principled stand at all. It simply says that the platform shouldn’t “censor” – i.e., refuse to provide a platform for – much legalcontent, without saying anything about how much or how this can be determined. 56 Notice too Musk’s indifference to the actual issue of free speech in his blithe acquiescence to limits on free speech imposed in accord with “the will of the people.” Of course, it is precisely such limits that the First Amendment prohibits. 57 The idea that the will of the people should determine how a social media platform operates reflects the collectivist premise that the platform, though legally held as private property, is essentially an organ of humanity as a whole, which must somehow be operated by humanity’s general will in the service of its collective good.

This same collectivist view dominates thinking about educational institutions and shapes discussion of speech there. The American Association of University Professors has long based its advocacy of “academic freedom” and the tenure system on the premise that “institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole.” 58 The Association acknowledges that there are some “proprietary institutions” whose purpose is “to subsidize the promotion of opinions held by the persons, usually not of the scholar’s calling, who provide the funds for their maintenance.” But it concerns itself only with “ordinary institutions of learning” whose purpose is “to advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators.” It holds that any such institution, whether run by the state or as nongovernmental entities, “constitutes a public trust” charged with carrying out a “threefold function”: (1) “to promote inquiry and advance the sum of human knowledge,” (2) “to provide general instruction to the students,” and (3) “to develop experts for the various branches of the public service.”

With universities as with Twitter, a supposed public function is thought to require institutions to provide people with a platform, regardless of the opinions they express. Because these non-governmental institutions supposedly serve a public function, they are expected to practice the sort of ideological neutrality that the law demands of government bodies. As a result, many of the individuals involved with institutions feel ill-used by policies that give them no option but to interact with people whose opinions they regard as odious, if they are to deal with the institution at all. And the institution’s interest in maintaining its relations with these aggrieved associates is at odds with its commitment not to discriminate against the speakers whom they find objectionable.

In the first instance, we see Musk’s collectivist conception of the need for intellectual diversity leading him to conclude that “free speech” cannot be an absolute. In the later episodes, we see his collectivist view of Twitter as a public good, leading to the demand that advertisers sacrifice by continuing to run ads there, regardless of whether they judge that these ads will benefit their companies.

The problems Musk faced in his attempts to operate a “free speech” platform are not new. In 2012, a decade before Musk’s purchase, Twitter regarded itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” 66 It professed a “John Stuart Mill-style philosophy” according to which “the most effective antidote to bad speech was good speech,” and so they engaged in little content moderation. By 2017 they had come to regard this philosophy as naive and felt a need “to take steps to limit the visibility of hateful symbols, to ban people from the platform who affiliate with violent groups.” 67   In 2019, (then) CEO Jack Dorsey said, “I don’t believe that we should optimize for neutrality . . . . Ultimately, I don’t think we can be this neutral, passive platform anymore.” 68 During the same period, Facebook and YouTube also began to moderate content on their platforms more aggressively.

There are many questions about the wisdom of various decisions made by the social media platforms in this difficult time. There is also evidence that some of these decisions were coerced by government actors, which would certainly be a violation of the platform’s right to free speech and of the First Amendment. But even apart from such violations, these platforms faced a difficult challenge, which ought to have been understood and faced in individualistic terms, but which was too often misconceived along collectivist, Millian lines. Essentially these platforms are in the business of facilitating associations pertaining to speech . In particular, they connect content providers with audiences and advertisers. The naive Millian approach that many of these companies took prior to 2015 was not a matter of overvaluing “free speech” or diversity of opinion. Rather, it represented too crude a view of what makes the relevant associations valuable to all the parties involved – including the speakers, the audience, the advertisers, and the owners and employees of the platform.

Sadly, McKenzie couched this decision in terms of the Millian package-deal that equates demonetizing publications (a form of disassociation) with censorship and a lack of support for individual rights and civil liberties:

I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either – we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away – in fact, it makes it worse. We believe that supporting individual rights and civil liberties while subjecting ideas to open discourse is the best way to strip bad ideas of their power. We are committed to upholding and protecting freedom of expression, even when it hurts. 80

But, of course, no one has an “individual right” to Substack’s services if Substack doesn’t want to provide them, and Substack is no more respecting the Nazis’ liberty by continuing to serve them than it would be infringing on their liberty if it decided to kick them off the platform. The issue is not one of liberty, but of the company’s view that there is great value in a content-neutral platform where even the most odious ideas can be voiced.

What distinguishes Substack from failed companies that also imagined themselves to be providing “free speech” platforms is that Substack has managed to create a network of mutually beneficial interactions among the members of the many different communities it hosts. Consider by contrast the case of Parler. It billed itself as “the premier global free speech platform” and promised to host content that was not welcome elsewhere, but unlike Substack, which hosts a wide range of creators, Parler was never more than a ghetto for marginal voices on the political right. 81 It failed because it relied for all its essential services on companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google, which did not want to be party to the content it hosted. Those companies all withdrew their services in the wake of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Parler was becoming popular among members of the MAGA movement. 82 The companies wanted nothing to do with Parler, because they thought its lax content-moderation policies made it a vector for incitement to violence. Parler denied that violence was being incited on its platform and complained that it was made a scapegoat. 83 Even if it was treated unjustly, the fundamental cause of its failure was that it had not found (or, seemingly, even sought) a way to build the sorts of relationships necessary to sustain a service that platforms even stigmatized speech. All Parler had to offer the parties on whom it relied were Millian demands for sacrifices on the altar of the supposed rights of people whom these parties regarded as deplorable and dangerous.

By contrast, Substack has thus far managed to retain mainstream content while also hosting respectable radicals as well as sundry crackpots and bigots. Its approach to content-moderation and online association enables readers, advertisers, and commentators to associate with the content that interests them without having to sanction content that they deplore – except in the very minimal sense of not boycotting Substack for continuing to provide services to the deplored customers. Creators’ willingness to deal with Substack on these terms doubtless owes a lot to their recognizing (with Mill) the value of intellectual diversity, to their being tired of a “cancel culture” that regards many widely held views as beyond the scope of acceptable debate, and to their valuing the assurance that they will not be deplatformed if they offend against some trendy shibboleth. But the value they get from Substack lies not simply in its refusal to deplatform (even) odious speech, but in its having developed policies that facilitate the exchange of heterodox ideas, and in having fostered a diverse community of creators and consumers who support these policies.

Substack promotes intellectual diversity by facilitating individual customers’ individualistic pursuits, rather than by calling on them to sacrifice their own values for an alleged public benefit. The same is true of other social media platforms, including X, YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit. When they provide value, it is by facilitating relationships through which individuals can advance their own values, rather than by adhering to impracticable principles that purport to serve a greater collective good (but that produce only strife).

The disciplinary actions against Wax and Dean may be breaches of their contracts, and it may be wise for some institutions of learning to have tenure policies that protect faculty from suffering adverse employment consequences for expressing stigmatized opinions. But the AAUP’s position goes far beyond this. Recall its view that any educational institution not explicitly devoted to the promulgation of some narrow creed is duty-bound to have a tenure policy protecting “academic freedom.” On this view, no institution of higher education could morally take into account whether its faculty’s pronouncements make students feel unwelcome and unsafe, repel donors and parents, or otherwise conflict with the values people seek from their association with the institution. Either these people are also duty-bound to continue associating with the university (violating their convictions and sacrificing their interests) or else they are free to disassociate, but the trustees of the institution are duty-bound to let the institution be blackballed along with its most odious professors.

Far from being anomalous, Wax’s and Dean’s comments are precisely the sort of speech that “academic freedom” has always been intended to protect. The AAUP was founded by John Dewey and Arthur Lovejoy. The latter was one of five professors who had resigned their positions at Stanford in 1900 to protest the university’s dismissal of economics professor Edward Alsworth Ross – an affair that provided much of the impetus for the AAUP. Ross was an anti-capitalist bigot who would go on to argue that society needed to “muzzle” Jesuits and business magnates (whom he referred to as “men of prey”). 88 In a story about a mass meeting of citizens asking for “protection from the influx of Asiatic hordes,” the San Francisco Call and Post (of May 8, 1900) reports that Ross

declared primarily that the Chinese and Japanese are impossible among us because they cannot assimilate with us; they represent a different and inferior civilization to our own and mean by their presence the degradation of American labor and American life. We demand a protection for the American workmen as well as for American products. . . . And should the worst come to the worst it would be better for us if we were to turn our guns upon every vessel bringing Japanese to our shores rather than to permit them to land. 89

Jordan’s initial argument against firing Ross embodies the especially strong reasons universities have for valuing the sort of job security that makes faculty members comfortable exploring controversial opinions. And many do consider this episode a black mark on the university’s record. It is notable however that Stanford went on to become one of America’s premiere institutions of higher education. This may be despite Ross’s firing, or it may be in part because there were people (faculty, students, parents, and donors) who preferred to be affiliated with a university that didn’t harbor professors who would prefer to murder immigrants en masse than to admit them. Likewise, there are people today who would regard it as a selling point if a university’s faculty did not enthuse over the rape and murder of Israelis or demean students of certain races. Undoubtedly there are also professors who, though they may abhor some of these opinions, would prefer to work at a university where voicing them is not a firing offense; and there are students and donors who may regard the presence of faculty with such views as a bracing form of intellectual diversity.

Contra the AAUP, universities are not public trusts, and there is no single policy they should all adopt regarding the range of speech it will tolerate from its faculty or students. Rather, each university is a distinct community of faculty, students, and other interested parties. It is neither possible nor desirable to isolate the members of this community from the economic incentives that derive from the constellation of facts that lead people to value (or disvalue) the university. These facts include the professors’ expressions of their opinions on controversial issues. The trustees and administrators of each institution can and should craft policies (and an institutional culture) that shape these incentives in support of its specific mission. This mission isn’t a function the institution serves for the public at large, but a function it plays for the individuals who choose to associate with it in one capacity or another. Most notably, universities have students , and different universities may cater to different student populations with different needs and values. To choose an obvious example, a university that finds a niche educating the children of Japanese immigrants would be wise not to tolerate faculty like Ross, and one that caters largely to Jewish students would do well to stay away from Dean.

Most universities’ missions include making an impact of some sort on the world. For example, Stanford was founded

to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 92

Such a mission doesn’t make a university a “public trust” in the manner that the AAUP imagines. Rather, the mission is a joint project of those individuals who choose to work together to pursue it. And this choice presupposes a common understanding (which may develop and alter over time) of the mission and how to advance it. Thus we should expect that even universities with similar missions may make different decisions about how to pursue intellectual diversity in the context of their other values.

For example, the University of Chicago and Princeton University have similar missions, and both claim to prioritize (what I am calling) welcoming heterodoxy. 93 But over the course of decades, they have adopted different policies and formed different cultures. The University of Chicago has a policy of “institutional neutrality” on social and political controversies. 94 Presidents of Princeton, thinking that universities are inherently value-laden, have argued that such neutrality is impossible or undesirable and so have instead favored a policy of “institutional restraint.” This has led Princeton to participate in some divestment campaigns that the University of Chicago did not, and to be more supportive of certain student protest movements. 95 Potential students, faculty, and donors are aware of such differences between universities and can consider them (in the context of all their other relevant values) when deciding which institution to affiliate with.

Whatever specific policies and attitudes a given university, social media platform, or other institution adopts, they will not constitute a culture of free speech unless those adopting them do so by self-conscious choice, owning the fact that they are individuals exercising their own rights in pursuit of their own values. This entails their valuing their right to make this choice, which includes valuing their right to choose differently .

An excellent example of this approach in a corporate setting is Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s 2020 blog post in which he clarified the company’s culture and laid out norms for keeping divisive cultural and political issues outside of the workplace. 98 Though many of the considerations Armstrong cites in support of Coinbase’s policies apply to other organizations, and though he does not shy away from this, his post is not a manifesto for the corporate world in general or an argument that every organization should emulate Coinbase. It is instead a wise attempt to reach alignment with those who choose to deal with his company about the terms on which they will interact. Importantly, he acknowledges that other companies may have different cultures, and that employees who aren’t aligned with Coinbase’s approach may want to seek employment elsewhere.

Armstrong’s post epitomizes the mindset of a genuine culture of free speech. It is the opposite of the Millian demand that individuals and organizations sacrifice their convictions and values by adopting ideologically neutral policies of association that may be inconsistent with their values. Such demands are premised on the notion that universities, social media companies, employers, and other businesses (such as internet service providers, banks, etc.) are obligated to operate with the ideological neutrality that is required of governments. There is no reason why all or most organizations should commit to any such policies, and for many it would be self-defeating.

When free speech is lauded as a collective value, it is often because the exchange of ideas allows truth to be discovered and error abandoned. But it is the individualistic culture of free speech, rather than the Millian, collectivistic alternative, that in fact promotes the discovery of truth and the countering of error. Louis D. Brandeis famously wrote that the “remedy to be applied” for “falsehood and fallacies” is “more speech, not enforced silence.” 99 There is truth in this. When one thinks that there is a falsehood or fallacy that has gone unanswered, one does well to answer it. But often falsehoods and fallacies continue to be repeated and spread, in their original forms or with trivial modifications, despite having been soundly answered. The rational course here is to marginalize them, rather than to devote one’s days to Sisyphean refutations of the same fallacies. We have seen that marginalizing ideas by refusing to platform them (or even, in some cases, by refusing to associate with their proponents) is an exercise of free speech. Like other exercises of free speech, policies that promote or marginalize certain types of speech can be mistaken or unjust. The way to fight such wrongs is not to demand that the policies be replaced to serve a collective good. It is to practice better policies oneself, not as a duty to society but in furtherance of one’s own values and those of one’s associates. This can include a policy of disassociating oneself with those whose policies one regards as especially unjust.

As applied to the issue of association or disassociation, valuing free speech amounts to valuing the freedom to associate with or disassociate from others based on their opinions (and on their approach to disagreement). It is not to prefer content-neutral terms of association over ideologically robust ones.

In general, freedom includes the ability to disassociate from others , whether on the grounds of their ideas or for any other reason. To be free is to be free from others imposing themselves on one, so that all one’s associations are voluntary. Rights are the principles defining this freedom. They are recognitions of the conditions that human beings need in order to coexist within a society, and they are distinct from the terms of association defining more specific relationships or institutions within the society. Rights should structure society: they delineate the spheres in which each person’s reason reigns and define what is up to whom in cases of disagreement. Our rights set the background context in which we can choose whom to deal with and on what terms.

All the values we can gain from our associations with others are products of their thinking. One is only thinking insofar as one is thinking freely – allowing one’s thoughts to go wherever the evidence leads – and this will lead to disagreement sometimes. Therefore, we need to value disagreement as well as agreement, and make sure not to create a censorious environment in which a particular party line has to be toed. Rather, we need to value the expression of differences insofar as this is consistent with the kinds of agreements that are presupposed by the kinds of relationships we have.

The right to free speech (and the broader liberty from which it is inseparable) is necessary not merely to create wide-open forums where all ideas are welcome, but also to create narrow alliances based on robust shared convictions. It is needed also to enable every sort of association between these extremes. It is through relationships of all these sorts that liberty enriches our lives, and a true culture of free speech is one that recognizes and celebrates this, not one that parochially values ideological neutrality. Moreover, it is a culture that recognizes that the institutions within our society – the universities, the corner shops, the social media platforms, and the technological and financial infrastructure that underlies them – do not belong to us as a collective and do not exist for the sake of promoting some “public good.” Rather, these institutions belong to the specific individuals who create and sustain them (in myriad ways), and they exist for the sake of these individuals’ values.

There is such a thing as a culture of free speech, but it does not consist in any specific set of policies that a university, a publisher, a social media platform, a library, or a bookstore might adopt. Nor does it consist in ideological neutrality or welcoming of heterodoxy, for it can be embodied at least as fully by associations predicated on robust ideological agreements as by associations that are more welcoming of dissent. Wells and Fleming’s newspaper, the Free Speech , would not have been more aptly named if it had opened its editorial pages to those who condoned lynchings as well as those who opposed them. The paper was well named not because it was neutral, but because its editors were asserting their right to express their ideas (using their own resources), even in a context where they knew they might be met not only with disapproval, but with force .

In a true culture of free speech, even people who detest a speaker will rally in the face of such forcible attempts to silence him. Volunteers will step forward to provide any needed security, because it will be generally understood that everyone is violated when anyone is forcibly silenced. Attempted silencing will fail, because people will amplify the threatened speech, in the understanding that intimidation cannot succeed when people stand united against it.

Such a culture is not possible among people who imagine that freedom of speech requires – or even gently suggests – that we give a hearing or a platform to all speakers, regardless of the content of their convictions or of our own. To embrace free speech as a cultural value, we must understand that the right that is violated by the forcible suppression of speech is exercised when someone peacefully chooses to deny a speaker her support. We must grasp that freedom of speech is, like all freedom, an instance of the principle that human beings must deal with one another by reason and persuasion, rather than force. In order to live by this principle, we must be keenly aware of the difference between expressing one’s opinion and forcing oneself on others. It is this domain of peaceable expression that the right to free speech defines and sanctions. A culture of free speech is one in which individuals appreciate, utilize, and guard the full extent of this freedom.

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• Writers advocating a “free speech culture” in addition to the protections for free speech under the law include: Jacob Mchangama, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media (New York: Basic Books: 2022); David French, “Campus Free Speech Can’t Survive Cultural Change,” The Atlantic , March 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/03/campus-free-speech-cant-survive-cultural-change-emma-camp-self-censorship/676573/ ; David French, “You Can Say That: Preserving Free Speech from Political Correctness,” John Locke Foundation (YouTube channel), posted December 11, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQF3HKcx52k&t=3065s ; Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, The Canceling of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster: 2023), especially 293–313; Nico Perrino, “Free Speech Culture, Elon Musk, and Twitter,” FIRE blog, December 1, 2022,  https://www.thefire.org/news/free-speech-culture-elon-musk-and-twitter#:~:text=We%20need%20a%20free%20speech,ability%20to%20share%20our%20opinions ; Robert Tracinski, “We Need More Than the First Amendment, We Need a ‘Culture of Free Speech,’” Discourse , June 14, 2021, https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/we-need-more-than-the-first-amendment-we-need-a-culture-of-free-speech ; Eugene Volokh, “Free Speech Rules, Free Speech Culture, and Legal Education,” Hofstra Law Review 51, no. 3 (June 2023); Nadine Strossen, Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024) 9.
• On this aspect of the virtue of independence, see especially Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Meridian, 1991), 251–59 and Tara Smith, Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 126–28).
• Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights.” in The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York: Signet, 1964 Centennial edition), 110.
• Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells , 2d ed. (Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 53.
• Wells, Crusade , 54.
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases , available online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm .
• Wells-Barnett, Southern Horrors ,5–6.
• Regarding the attacks on free speech by Islamists, see especially Steve Simpson, ed., Defending Free Speech (Irvine, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press, 2016), and Flemming Rose, The Tyranny of Silence (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2014).
• “Rev. Nightingale had, in the meantime, withdrawn from the paper. He had trouble with his congregation and he wanted to use the Free Speech to flay those who had opposed him and wanted to get rid of him. When we objected to the articles he wrote abusing his enemies, who were our supporters, he withdrew and we bought out his interest.” Wells, Crusade , 36.
• “Six weeks after the lynching the superintendent and treasurer of the City Railway Company came into the office of the Free Speech and asked us to use our influence with the colored people to get them to ride on the streetcars again.” Wells, Crusade , 47. “‘You see it’s a matter of dollars and cents with us. If we don’t look after the loss and remedy the cause the company will get somebody else who will.’ ‘So your own job then depends on Negro patronage?’ I asked.” Wells, Crusade , 48.
• “Of course the Free Speech had a very caustic comment on this particular incident and that type of minister. The preachers’ alliance at its meeting the following Monday morning voted to boycott the Free Speech because of that comment and the exposure of that incident. They sent the presiding elder of the district to the office to threaten us with the loss of their patronage and the fight they were going to make against us in their congregations. We answered this threat by publishing the names of every minister who belonged to the alliance in the next issue of the Free Speech , and told the community that these men upheld the immoral conduct of one of their number and asked if they were willing to support preachers who would sneak into their homes when their backs were turned and debauch their wives. Needless to say we never heard any more about the boycott, and the Free Speech flourished like a green bay tree.” Wells, Crusade , 36–37.
• Consider a situation in which one party might be described as “threatening” to disassociate from a second unless the second agrees to his terms. If we regard this literally as a threat that would make second party’s acceptance of the terms involuntary, then, in order to avoid threatening the second party, the first would have to continue associating with the second even on terms that the first finds unacceptable, and so the relationship would not be voluntary for the first party.
• The italicized formulation is a paraphrase of Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 110. For elaboration, see Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Dutton, 1991), 351–63; DarrylWright “‘A Human Society’: Rand’s Social Philosophy” in Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri, eds., A Companion to Ayn Rand (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 172–77; Gregory Salmieri, “Selfish Regard for the Rights of Others: Continuing a Discussion with Zwolinski, Miller, and Mossoff,” in Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, eds., Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), 184–92; and Onkar Ghate “Rand (contra Nozick) on Individual Rights and the Emergence and Justification of Government,” in Salmieri and Mayhew, Foundations ,211–19.
• Rand, “Man’s Rights.”
• I exclude here cases of defamation, on which see below, note 11.
• Wells, Crusade ,54–55. The power of disassociation is a theme in Wells’s autobiography, which begins with the story of her father leaving the man who was his employer, landlord, and former owner, over the latter’s attempt to pressure him into voting Democratic.
• A notable case of this sort of disassociation over ideology in American history is the boycotting by some Hollywood studios of Communist writers (and the much less remarked-on boycotting by many sympathetic to these Communists of those who had testified about Communist activity in Hollywood before the House Un-American Activities Committee). This episode is often represented as a violation of the Communists’ freedom of speech. Rand argued compellingly it was not. See Michael S. Berliner, ed., Letters of Ayn Rand (New York: Dutton, 1995),433–34, 435–36; Robert Mayhew, ed., Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A (New York: New American Library, 2005 Centennial edition), 80–85; David Harriman, ed., Journals of Ayn Rand (New York: Plume, 1999),366; Robert Mayhew, Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 84–93; John David Lewis and Gregory Salmieri, “A Philosopher on Her Times: Ayn Rand’s Political and Cultural Commentary,” in Gotthelf and Salmieri, Companion , 354–55.
• See Robert Garmong’s “The Arc of Liberalism” in Salmieri and Mayhew (eds.), Foundations of a Free Society .
• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, in Mary Warnock, ed., Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Essay on Bentham (New York: Meridian, 1974), 130, 159.
• For example, Mill speaks of the nascent labor movement’s employing “a moral police, which occasionally becomes a physical one” to impose its opinions on employers and workers (Mill, On Liberty , 219). The moral police is presumably the body of union members voicing their disapproval of or disassociating from those who voice (or act on) opinions contrary to their own; it becomes a physical police (I presume) when it resorts to violence. In fact, many of the tactics of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century labor movement violated rights. As Rand puts the point: “An individual has no right to do a ‘sit‐in’ in the home or office of a person he disagrees with – and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers – and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob” (Ayn Rand, “The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion,’” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967 Centennial edition), 291).
• On the fallacy of “package-dealing,” see Gregory Salmieri, “The Objectivist Epistemology,” in Gotthelf and Salmieri, Companion , 297–98, and the sources cited therein.
• Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 110.
• My point here is not about the specific charges (“conspiracy,” “murder,” “mayhem”) under which these actions are or ought to be prosecutable, as these may differ from one jurisdiction to the next. The point is that these actions are akin to the rights-violations cognized under such laws, and ought to be prosecutable for the same underlying reasons, whether under these laws or under separate laws prohibiting threats or incitement.
• Some of those behind the social media campaign that led to Paty’s death were (properly) prosecuted by the French authorities. Juliette Jabkhiro and Clotaire Achi, “Six French Teenagers Convicted in Connection with 2020 Beheading of Teacher Paty,” Reuters (website), December 28, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/six-teenagers-convicted-connection-with-2020-beheading-teacher-paty-2023-12-08/.
• Elan Journo, ed., Winning the Unwinnable War (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books: 2009); Leonard Peikoff, “Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech,” Ayn Rand Institute (website), 1989, https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/foreign-policy/foreign-policy-more/religious-terrorism-vs-free-speech/.
• Fraud is not free speech, because a fraudster’s lies are a means of forcing himself on his victim, so that the transaction that takes place is not the one the victim consented to. Defamation (as distinct from mere criticizing or badmouthing) is a violation of a sort of property a person (or institution) has in his reputation – the same (broad) sort of property that is secured by trademark. Harry Binswanger explains: “Someone who impersonates me in order to sell to customers impressed by my reputation is, in effect, stealing this property from me (as well as defrauding the customers). And someone who defames me is damaging this property. The idea that a person can have property in his reputation follows from Rand’s view that the basis for a property right is an individual’s creation of something that is of material value.” (Harry Binswanger, “Egoism, Force, and the Need for Government,” in Salmieri and Mayhew, Foundations , 274).
• It is worth mentioning in this connection the American Civil Liberties Union’s 1977 defense of the National Socialists’ right to stage a march in Skokie, Illinois, which is much celebrated by those who think of themselves as free-speech absolutists. The Nazis had no right to hold such an event, because no one has the right to stage events of this kind. However, in a context where other ideological groups were permitted to hold such events on public property, it was violation of free speech for the Nazis to be excluded on ideological grounds. Rand explains: “You do not have the right to parade through the public streets or to obstruct public thoroughfares. You have the right of assembly, yes, on your own property, and on the property of your adherents or your friends. But nobody has the ‘right’ to clog the streets. The streets are only for passage. The hippies, in the ’60s, should have been forbidden to lie down on city pavements. (They used to lie down across a street and cause dreadful traffic snarls, in order to display their views, to attract attention, to register a protest.) If they were permitted to do it, the Nazis should be permitted as well. Properly, both should have been forbidden. They may speak, yes. They may not take action at whim on public property” (Ayn Rand, “The First Amendment and ‘Symbolic Speech,’” in Peter Schwartz, ed., Ayn Rand Column , rev. ed. (Irvine, CA: Ayn Rand Institute, 2015),117).
• On the issue of rights-violating protests generally, see Onkar Ghate’s talk “Questioning the Sacrosanct: Is There a Right to Protest?,” Salem Center for Policy (YouTube channel), November 2, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdpu2JzzhFs. On Occupy Wall Street, see James A. Anderson, “Some Say Occupy Wall Street Did Nothing. It Changed Us More than We Think,” Time ,November 15, 2021, https://time.com/6117696/occupy-wall-street-10-years-later/ . On pro-Palestinian protesters occupying thoroughfares, see “Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators Shut Down Airport Highways and Bridges in Major Cities,” NPR (website), April 16, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244990246/pro-palestinian-demonstrators-shut-down-airport-highways-and-bridges . On their occupying campuses, see John McWhorter, “I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice,” New York Times , John McWhorter newsletter, April 23, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html and Lily Kepner, Skye Seipp, Ella McCarthy and Serena Lin, “UT-Austin Students Hold Pro-Palestinian Protest; at least 50 arrested,” Austin American-Statesman , April 25, 2024, https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2024/04/24/ut-austin-campus-student-protest-arrest-pro-palestine-protests-walk-out/73425149007 . On their occupying someone’s home, see Vimal Patel, “At Berkeley, a Protest at a Dean’s Home Tests the Limits of Free Speech,” New York Times ,April 12, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/uc-berkeley-palestinian-protest-free-speech.html .
• For information on the events at Berkeley from authors largely sympathetic to the protesting students, see Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, eds., The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press: 2002).
• Rand, “The Cashing-In,” 291.
• See Simpson, Defending Free Speech ,87–89.

For years, the collectivists have been propagating the notion that a private individual’s refusal to finance an opponent is a violation of the opponent’s right of free speech and an act of “censorship.”

• On restrictions of commercial speech, see: https://ij.org/issues/first-amendment/commercial-speech/ . On campaign finance laws as violations of free speech, see Simpson, Defending Free Speech , 93–108.
• On why the “separation of church and state” demanded by the First Amendment should be applied to ideas more generally, see Onkar Ghate, “A Wall of Separation between Church and State: Understanding This Principle’s Supporting Arguments and Far-Reaching Implications,” in Salmieri and Mayhew, Foundations , 283–303, reprinted as chapter 2 of this volume.
• On the evil of public education, see Nathaniel Branden, “Common Fallacies about Capitalism,” in Rand, Capitalism ,92–96. See also “Is Public Education Compatible with Free Speech?,” Salem Center for Policy (YouTube channel), November 2, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7zMtX0W82s , and Matt Bateman, “Public Schools Exacerbate the Culture Wars,” Montessorium (blog), November 17, 2021, https://montessorium.com/blog/public-schools-exacerbate-the-culture-wars .
• For example, Jordan Peterson’s free speech was violated by the College of Psychologists of Ontario when it disciplined him (threatening to revoke his license to practice psychology) because of his controversial statements on a number of subjects. (Tyler Dawson, “Read Jordan Peterson’s Tweets That Prompted Complaints to Psychologists’ College,” National Post , January 6, 2023, https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/read-jordan-petersons-tweets-that-prompted-complaints-to-psychologists-college ). But the underlying violation of free speech is the existence of the College itself as a regulatory body . An organization of psychologists making joint determinations about who is a qualified practitioner in their field may need to take cognizance of the practitioners’ opinions on a range of subjects (and of how they chose to express these opinions). And their doing so would be no violation of the freedom of speech if the organization were voluntary. However, when the decisions of the organization determine whether someone is to be legally allowed to practice, any consideration of such opinions becomes fraught. To minimize the evil inherent in the existence of such an organization, it is obligated to adopt the most neutral stance possible toward practitioners’ opinions, even if that reduces its work to a sort of box-checking exercise that is insufficient to make meaningful determinations about who is and is not fit to practice.
• Florida’s statute 501.2041(2)(b) demands a consistent standard for shadow-banning and deplatforming users on social media platforms ( http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0500-0599/0501/Sections/0501.2041.html ). Texas’s H.B. 20 bars social media platforms with more than fifty million active users from blocking, removing, or demonetizing content of users based on their views ( https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/872/billtext/html/HB00020F.HTM ). Both laws were enjoined by district courts as a result of facial First Amendment challenges. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the injunction against the Florida law, but the Fifth Circuit reversed the injunction of the Texas law, creating a circuit split. The Supreme Court vacated both circuit court holdings and remanded the cases “because neither the Eleventh Circuit nor the Fifth Circuit conducted a proper analysis of the facial First Amendment challenges to Florida and Texas laws regulating large internet platforms” ( Moody v. NetChoice , https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf ). At present the district courts’ injunctions are in effect. The Supreme Court’s ruling makes clear that the specific provisions of the laws that were focused on by the circuit courts are unconstitutional and that the Fifth Circuit’s “decision rested on a serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle,” so there is little doubt that the relevant previsions of the laws will ultimately be struck down (whether or not this facial challenge against the laws as wholes ultimately succeeds).
• For example, there are contexts in which burning a cross, drawing a swastika, or invoking the mottos or symbols of a violent group (such as ISIS, the Ku Klux Klan, or a street gang) could be reasonably understood as putting people on notice that they are subject to violence from these groups or as calling potential victims to the group’s attention. In such cases, the invocations could be tantamount to intimidation or coordination of criminal activity.
• Thus Wells’s right of free speech was violated when her contract as a public school teacher was not renewed because she had protested “conditions in the colored schools.” As she recounts the event: “No fault was found with my ability as a teacher or with my character, but the board had a copy of the Free Speech on file in the office showing criticism of them. They didn’t care to employ a teacher who had done this, and for that reason I had been left out.” (Wells, Crusade ,32–34) However, it would not have been a violation of Wells’s free speech rights if she had been fired by a private school for having published a similar criticism of it.
• Wells, Crusade , 48–49. For additional background on these events, see Damon Mitchell, “The People’s Grocery Lynching, Memphis, Tennessee,” JSTOR Daily (blog), January 24, 2018, https://daily.jstor.org/peoples-grocery-lynching/ .

Katie Shepherd and Mark Guarino, “Liberal Prosecutors Face Backlash over Lenient Charges Following Civil Unrest and Looting,” Washington Post , August 12, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/12/chicago-portland-protester-charges/ . Mariana Alfaro, “Trump Vows Pardons, Government Apology to Capitol Rioters if Elected,” Washington Post , September 1, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/01/trump-jan-6-rioters-pardon/ .

• Surely racism (and cowardice concerning it) does not exist in America today at the scale and in the form that it did in Wells’s time, but it persists in various forms, and questions about the extent, nature, causes, and effects of racism in present-day America continue to be controversial. I will not go further into this question here, except to say that whatever is the case with racism in particular, we must be ever vigilant about the possibility of widespread cultural prejudices within our society (and in ourselves) that can pervert the course of justice in some of the ways described.
• See George H.W. Bush’s remarks in the wake of the Ayatollah’s call for Salman Rushdie’s murder, remarks which the New York Times characterized as “intended to express condemnation in a low-key manner” (Thomas L. Friedman, “Bush Finds Threat to Murder Author ‘Deeply Offensive,’” New York Times , February 22, 1989, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-bush.html ); George W. Bush’s official statement that “Islam Is Peace” in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks (“‘Islam Is Peace,’ Says President,” White House press release, September 17, 2001, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html ); Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President to the UN General Assembly,” White House press release, September 25, 2012, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly (“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”); Donald Trump’s tweet that it was “dumb” for the Charlie Hebdo magazine to criticize Mohammed in a cartoon that thereby “provoked” a violent response by terrorists ( https://tinyurl.com/m8pr8yr2 ); David Frum, “Why Obama Won’t Talk about Islamic Terrorism,” Atlantic , February 16, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/why-obama-wont-talk-about-islamic-terrorism/385539/ (Obama describing terrorist attacks as “random” in order to avoid describing the perpetrators’ religious motives); Elan Journo, “After Orlando: Why Trump and Clinton Both Get the Jihadists Wrong,” in Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo, eds., Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: What Went Wrong After 9/11 , 2d expanded ed. (Santa Ana, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press, 2021), 166–68 (leading presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, “have put forward views that negate the ideological character of the enemy”).
• See Journo, Winning the Unwinnable War ; Ghate and Journo, Failing to Confront ; and Leonard Peikoff’s article following the 9/11 attacks, “End States Who Sponsor Terrorism,” in Ghate and Journo, Failing to Confront , xvii–xxii, https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/foreign-policy/foreign-policy-more/end-states-who-sponsor-terrorism/ .
• For example, many of the organizations mentioned were subjects of the COINTELPRO, a counterintelligence program run by the FBI between 1956 and 1971. On this program, see the Church Committee’s report, https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/church-committee.htm NS, and David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).
• On the problems created by misconceptualizing in this field, see Tara Smith, “The Free Speech Vernacular: Conceptual Confusions in the Way We Speak about Speech,” chapter 4 in her The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom (Santa Ana, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press: 2024).
• See Ghate, “A Wall of Separation,” and Onkar Ghate, “Church-State Separation: A Principle, Not a ‘Wall,’” New Ideal , March 27, 2019,https://newideal.aynrand.org/church-state-separation-a-principle-not-a-wall-part-1/.
• In situations where there is no government (or the government is irredeemably unjust), the principle of rights demands that a just government be formed, and it obligates those living in the society either to work toward forming one (where there is any possibility of doing so) or else attempt to escape to a more moral society.
• Mill, On Liberty , 163–64.
• Mill, On Liberty , 164.
• The law firm Davis Polk has rescinded offers to law students from Columbia and Harvard on these grounds: Adam Gabbatt, “Leading US Law Firm Says It Rescinded Job Offers to Students Who Backed Israel-Hamas Letters,” The Guardian , October 18, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/18/student-palestine-letter-harvard-columbia-us-law-firm-jobs-revoked.
• https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/ .
• Elon Musk (@elonmusk), “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto town square,” Twitter, March 26, 2022, 1:51 p.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507777261654605828 .
• Elon Musk (@elonmusk), “Dear Twitter Advertisers,” Twitter, October 27, 2022, 9:08 a.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728/photo/2 .
• Elon Musk (@elonmusk), “By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which matches the law,” Twitter, April 26, 2022, 3:33 p.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376 .
• “Censorship” as used to include refusals-to-platform is an “anti-concept” – “an unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept” (Ayn Rand, “Credibility and Polarization,” Ayn Rand Letter 1, no. 1 (October 11, 1971), 1. In particular, the term “censorship” was used by socialists in the mid-twentieth century to obliterate the legitimate concepts of “censorship” and “free speech.” Rand forcefully differentiates such refusals-to-platform from censorship: “‘Censorship’ is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one’s own antagonists” (Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 116). The point is not merely semantic. If one accepts that there is a right to freedom of speech (as elaborated in the first section of this paper), then there can be no grounds for any concept that includes only some acts of content moderation (which are exercises of this right) and all acts of genuine censorship (which are violations of this same right).
• Of course the First Amendment, like all law (even fundamental law), is ultimately passed by the people’s representatives and can be changed by them in the future. Its status as a law reflects the will of the people whose duly elected representatives ratified it. But, what they were doing in ratifying it was recognizing and protecting a right that is inherent in human nature, and this is what makes it a just law. This relation between laws and rights is well reflected in the concluding text of the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty (which was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, shepherded through the Virginia legislature by James Madison, and then served as a model for the First Amendment): “And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that, therefore, to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind; and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right” (Va. Code Ann. § 57-1, https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title57/chapter1/).
• American Association of University Professors, “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” 14, https://www.aaup.org/file/1940%20Statement.pdf .
• American Association of University Professors, “1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure,” 293, 296–97, https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf.
• AAUP, “1915 Declaration,” 297.
• AAUP, “1915 Declaration,” 300.
• Tiffany Hsu, “Twitter’s Advertisers Pull Back as Layoffs Sweep Through Company,” New York Times , November 4, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/technology/twitter-advertisers.html ; Nicholas Reimann, “Musk Says Apple Cutting Twitter Ads – Here Are Other Companies Rethinking Their Ties,” Forbes.com (website), November 28, 022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/28/musk-says-apple-cutting-twitter-ads-here-are-the-other-companies-rethinking-their-ties/ ; Kari Paul, “General Mills Latest to Halt Twitter Ads as Musk Takeover Sparks Brand Exodus,” The Guardian , November 3, 2022,  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/03/general-mills-twitter-ads-halt-musk-takeover ; Kate Congers and Tiffany Hsu, “More Advertisers Halt Spending on X in Growing Backlash Against Musk,” New York Times ,November 18, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html .
• Elon Musk, “Dear Twitter Advertisers.”
• Elon Musk (@elonmusk), “Premium+ also has no ads on your timeline,” X, November 17, 2023, 9:48 p.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725707584555143602 .
• “Elon Musk’s X sues advertisers over alleged ‘massive advertiser boycott’ after Twitter takeover,” Associated Press , August 6, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/x-sues-advertisers-unilever-cvs-mars-orsted-673d1ae88e9fb0ca5b170d238739453e . Relevant Tweets: https://x.com/lindayaX/status/1820838134470328676 , https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1820849880283107725?lang=en , https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1820849358402670800?lang=en , https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1820852107932545242 , https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1820851090138505570.
• Josh Halliday, “Twitter’s Tony Wang: ‘We Are the Free Speech Wing of the Free Speech Party,’” The Guardian ,March 22, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-tony-wang-free-speech.
• Sinead McSweeney (Twitter’s vice president for public policy and communications in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) in 2017 testimony before British parliament (Shona Ghosh, “Twitter Was Once a Bastion of Free Speech but Now Says It’s ‘No Longer Possible to Stand Up for All Speech,’” Business Insider , December 19, 2017,  https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-no-longer-possible-to-stand-up-for-all-speech-2017-12?r=nordic).
• Ashe Schow, “Twitter CEO: ‘I Don’t Believe That We Can Afford to Take a Neutral Stance Anymore,’” Daily Wire , February 11, 2019, https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-ceo-i-dont-believe-we-can-afford-take-ashe-schow ; “Jack Dorsey,” SamHarris.org (website), interview, February 5, 2019, https://samharris.org/podcasts/148-jack-dorsey/.
• The terms “left” and “right” as they are used in contemporary political discourse name rival tribes, each of which is united by its fear and hatred of the other, rather than by a shared ideology. On the constitution and history of these tribes (and the various ideas current in each of them), see Nikos Sotirakopoulos, Identity Politics and Tribalism: The New Culture Wars (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2021).
• Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tony Romm, “Facebook Purged over 800 U.S. Accounts and Pages for Pushing Political Spam,” Washington Post ,October 11, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/11/facebook-purged-over-accounts-pages-pushing-political-messages-profit/ ; “Removing Additional Inauthentic Activity from Facebook,” Meta (website), October 11, 2018, https://about.fb.com/news/2018/10/removing-inauthentic-activity/ ; Helen Lewis, “What You Can’t Say on YouTube,” The Atlantic , March 10, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/youtube-content-moderation-rules/673322/ ; Sam Levin, “YouTube’s Small Creators Pay Price of Policy Changes after Logan Paul Scandal,” The Guardian ,January 18, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/18/youtube-creators-vloggers-ads-logan-paul ; Jack Nicas, “Google’s YouTube Has Continued Showing Brands’ Ads With Racist and Other Objectionable Videos,” Wall Street Journal ,March 24, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-youtube-has-continued-showing-brands-ads-with-racist-and-other-objectionable-videos-1490380551 ; Alexi Mostrous, “Big Brands Fund Terror Through Online Adverts,” Sunday Times , February 9, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/big-brands-fund-terror-knnxfgb98 ;  Avi Selk, “Facebook Told Two Women Their Pro-Trump Videos Were ‘Unsafe,’” Washington Post , April 10, 2018,  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/10/facebook-accused-of-deeming-black-pro-trump-sisters-unsafe/ ; Ashley Gold, “‘We’ve Been Censored,’ Diamond and Silk Tell Congress,” Politico , April 26, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/26/diamond-and-silk-congress-hearing-1116887 .
• On the lawsuit, see Prager University v. Google LLC, No. 18-15712, slip op. (9th Cir. Feb. 26, 2020), https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/02/26/18-15712.pdf ; Nancy Scola, “Federal Court Tosses Conservatives’ First Amendment Suit against YouTube,” Politico ,February 26, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/youtube-court-first-amendment-117769 ; NetChoice, Letter to Sen. Ted Cruz, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, re: Hearing to Examine Google on Censorship Through Search Engines, July 15, 2019, https://netchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NetChoice-comment-for-Sen-Judiciary-hearing-16-Jul-2019-1.pdf .
• On the shooting, see Nellie Bowles and Jack Nicas, “YouTube Attacker’s Complaints Echoed Fight over Ad Dollars,” New York Times ,April 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/youtube-attacker-demonetization.html .
• Kate Conger and Mike Isaac, “In Reversal, Twitter Is No Longer Blocking New York Post Article,” New York Times ,October 16, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/technology/twitter-new-york-post.html ; Noah Manskar, “Jack Dorsey Says Blocking Post ’s Hunter Biden Story Was ‘Total Mistake’ – But Won’t Say Who Made It,” New York Post ,March 25, 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/03/25/dorsey-says-blocking-posts-hunter-biden-story-was-total-mistake/ .
• Kate Conger, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel, “Twitter and Facebook Lock Trump’s Accounts after Violence on Capitol Hill,” New York Times , January 6, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/technology/capitol-twitter-facebook-trump.html ; Will Oremus, “Tech Giants Banned Trump. But Did They Censor Him?,” Washington Post , January 7, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/07/trump-facebook-ban-censorship/ .
• Harris is especially good in his opening remarks on free speech in episode 344 of his podcast, https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/344-the-war-in-gaza , and the two discuss their approaches to being a public intellectual (and engaging with social media) in the first thirty-three minutes of Harris’s appearance on Peterson’s podcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3sk9gPfOA&t=207s .
• Sam Harris, “Closing My Patreon Account,” Patreon email, https://mailchi.mp/samharris/closing-my-patreon-account .
• Jordan Peterson, “Patreon Account Deletion,” video, Jordan B. Peterson (YouTube channel), posted January 15, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrZDcEix7uk .
• CEO’s position statement, December 21, 2023, https://substack.com/@hamish/note/c-45811343 .
• Jonathan M. Katz, “Substack Has a Nazi Problem,” The Atlantic , November 28, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/ .
• CEO’s position statement, https://substack.com/@hamish/note/c-45811343 . Bryan Caplan, “Substack versus the Slippery Slope,” January 28, 2024, https://betonit.substack.com/p/substack-versus-the-slippery-slope .
• https://web.archive.org/web/20220501001906/https://parler.com/ .
• Jack Nicas and Davey Alba, “Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler, an App That Drew Trump Supporters,” New York Times , Jan. 9, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/apple-google-parler.html ; Karen Weise and Nicole Perlroth, “Parler Accuses Amazon of Breaking Antitrust Law in Suspending Hosting Services,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/business/parler-amazon.html .
• Aatif Sulleyman, “Parler’s Amy Peikoff Says Tech Giants Use ‘1984’ Like ‘An Instruction Manual,’” Newsweek , Jan 12, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/parler-amy-peikoff-says-tech-giants-use-1984-like-instruction-manual-1560730 .
• Vimal Patel, “UPenn Accuses a Law Professor of Racist Statements. Should She Be Fired?,” New York Times ,March 13, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/us/upenn-law-professor-racism-freedom-speech.html . Ethan Young, “Leaked documents shed new light on recommended Amy Wax sanctions, her appeal to Penn,” Daily Pennsylvanian ,2/09/2024, https://www.thedp.com/article/2024/02/amy-wax-hearing-leaked-documents-penn .
• Jodi Dean, “Palestine Speaks for Everyone,” Verso (blog), April 9, 2024, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/palestine-speaks-for-everyone .
• Mark D. Gearan, “A Message from President Mark D. Gearan,” Hobart and William Smith Colleges (website), April 13, 2024, https://www.hws.edu/offices/president/statements/a-message-from-president-mark-d-gearan.aspx.
• W.E.B. du Bois Movement School (@AbolitionSchool), “Jodi Dean has been banned from the classroom for speaking the truth,” X, April 14, 2024, 7:58 p.m., https://twitter.com/AbolitionSchool/status/1779660609367281920; Brian Leiter, “Brazen Violation of Contractual Rights of a Faculty Member at Hobart & William Smith Colleges,” Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog ,April 14, 2024, https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2024/04/brazen-violation-of-contractual-rights-of-a-faculty-member-at-hobart-william-smith-colleges.html ; Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAmari), “I fiercely, thoroughly disagreed with Jodi’s piece,” X, April 13, 2024, 4:17 p.m., https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1779242644658393340.
• Edward Alsworth Ross, Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 52.
• “Warning Against Coolie ‘Natives’ and Japanese,” San Francisco Call and Post , May 8, 1900, 12, https://www.newspapers.com/image/78268425/?match=1&terms=%22vessel%20bringing%20Japanese%22.
• Jane Stanford, Letter of May 17, 1900, quoted in Warren J. Samuels, “The Firing of E. A. Ross from Stanford University: Injustice Compounded by Deception?,” Journal of Economic Education , Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 183–90 ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/1182424 ).
• On the Ross affair, see (in addition to the sources cited in the previous notes): Orrin Leslie Elliott, Stanford University: The First Twenty-Five Years (Stanford University Press, 1937), 326–78; Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896 (Oxford History of the United States) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 704–706; Brian Eule, “Watch Your Words, Professor,” Stanford Magazine , January/February2015, https://stanfordmag.org/contents/watch-your-words-professor .
• “Stanford History,” Stanford University (website), https://facts.stanford.edu/about/.
• Compare their mission statements: “Mission Statement,” Princeton University (website), https://www.princeton.edu/meet-princeton/mission-statement , and “What We Value,” University of Chicago (website), https://www.uchicago.edu/who-we-are/what-we-value .
• Kalven Committee, “Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action,” University of Chicago (website), November 11, 1967, https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/KalvenRprt_0.pdf.
• Christopher L. Eisgruber, “Princeton’s Tradition of Institutional Restraint,” Princeton Alumni Weekly , November 7, 2022, https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princeton-president-christopher-eisgruber-tradition-institutional-restraint.
• Jacob Howland, “College of the Future,” City Journal ,Winter 2023, https://www.city-journal.org/article/college-of-the-future#:~:text=We%20care%20about%20academic%20freedom,and%20has%20encouraged%20political%20conformity .
• Howland, “College of the Future.”
• Brian Armstrong, “Coinbase Is a Mission Focused Company,” Coinbase(website), September 27, 2020, https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company .
• Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring).
• On this story, see Mateo Gutierrez, Lyla Bhalla-Ladd and Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan, “Provost Announces Valedictorian Won’t Speak at Graduation in May,” USCAnnenbergMedia.com (website), April 15, 2024, https://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2024/04/15/provost-announces-valedictorian-wont-speak-at-graduation-in-may/ ; Stephanie Saul, “U.S.C. Cancels Valedictorian’s Speech After Pro-Israel Groups Object,” New York Times , April 16, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/us/usc-valedictorian-speech-gaza-war.html ; Jaweed Kaleem, “USC Valedictorian’s Grad Speech Is Canceled: ‘The University Has Betrayed Me,’” Los Angeles Times , April 16, 2024, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-16/usc-valedictorian-banned-graduation-speech .
• Regarding Milo Yiannopoulos, see Susan Svrluga, “Milo Speech at U-Md. Canceled Because Security Fee Was Too High; Supporters Call It Censorship,” Washington Post , October 25, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/25/milo-speech-at-u-md-canceled-because-security-fee-was-too-high-supporters-call-it-censorship/ . Regarding Ben Shapiro, see Eugene Volokh, “Cal State L.A. Cancels Speech by Conservative Writer Ben Shapiro [UPDATE: Cal. State L.A. Is Allowing Shapiro to Speak After All],” Washington Post ,February 25, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/02/25/cal-state-l-a-cancels-speech-by-conservative-writer-ben-shapiro/ . I know about the canceled Brook events from personal communication with Brook.

Gregory Salmieri

Gregory Salmieri , PhD in philosophy, is a senior scholar of philosophy in the Salem Center for Policy at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. He holds the Brigham Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism and is the director of the center’s Program for Objectivity in Thought, Action, and Enterprise. He is co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand and Foundations of a Free Society and has published and lectured on epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophies of Aristotle and Ayn Rand.

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Joe Giudice Makes a Life-Saving Fix to His Bahamas House: "Good Thing I Noticed..."

The Real Housewives of New Jersey  ex-husband is revealing the major update he made to the outside of his home.

Joe Giudice' s balcony at his Bahamas home is in trouble — and he has to fix it.

How to Watch

Watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey on Peacock and the Bravo app .  

The Real Housewives of New Jersey   ex-husband took to his Instagram Story earlier this week, where he revealed that the railing protecting the outdoor balcony in his Bahamas home is just a little loose. In the social media post, Joe filmed himself at night, talking to the camera about the situation.

"I was working out yesterday, right, I noticed all this over here," he explained, kicking the balcony railing, which appeared to separate from the concrete. "So, all of this is loose, this all needs to come down, I need to redo all that. And this is on the third floor," he said. "These spindles right here, I grabbed them as I was doing some sit-ups...so as I grabbed these spindles, they fall off. They just pulled right off and I fell." 

Given that this is on the third floor, this could be a hazard to Joe. And since his four daughters with ex-wife  Teresa Giudice   come to visit often , it's no wonder why he wants to fix it immediately. "This is pretty high up," he explained in the video. "Now, God forbid you fall down this thing here, your survival rate is extremely low. Hit the water you might break something, hit the concrete you're done. It's a good thing I noticed."

Joe posts a photo of himself to his Instagram stories.

Joe then took to his Instagram Story the next day, where he explained why he was so concerned. "The real meaning behind it was, to make sure you're always aware of your surroundings," he said. "Always be aware of your surroundings no matter what, no matter where you're at, alright?" 

Here’s what you may have missed on Bravo:

See Teresa Giudice's Surprising Reaction to Gia's Timeline For Moving In with Her Boyfriend

Joe Giudice Speaks Out on Louie Ruelas: "I Want to Say..."

Joe Giudice Shares an Unfortunate Update on His Bahamas Home: "I'm So Pissed"

Teresa Giudice Reveals If She'll Attend Joe Giudice's Boxing Match

Teresa gives her very honest opinion of meeting joe giudice’s girlfriend: "it was...".

The whole reason why Joe found out about his loose balcony is because he was working out and doing sit-ups while training for his upcoming boxing match . He will be squaring up against actor Antonio Sabato Jr. in the match in the Bahamas this December. 

During an August 21 episode of her podcast,  Turning The Tables with Teresa Giudice ,  Teresa revealed that she has been helping Joe promote the match, but she's unsure if she will be attending . "It's so crazy," she said. She noted that she was happy for Joe and is sure that their four daughters will be there to support their dad.

"I don't know if Louie [Ruelas] and I are gonna go, but we'll see as the time comes around," she said. "They'll definitely be there."

• Teresa Giudice

The Real Housewives of New Jersey

• Gardens And Outdoor Spaces
• Home And Design
• Joe Giudice
• Luis “Louie” Ruelas

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