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Sometimes
a good way to improve your English proficiency is by memorizing
an English passage and repeating it over and again. This
can improve pronunciation, vocabulary, and confidence
in one's speaking. Here are some speeches or text passages
from history that are remembered for their content and
their delivery.
The
length of each passage varies, so pick the length that
you feel is most appropriate for your needs.
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Patrick
Henry (1775) |
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"Gentlemen
may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually
begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to
our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already
in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen
wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,
as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid
it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but
as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" |
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Thomas
Paine (1776) |
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"These
are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service
of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love
and thanks of man and woman." |
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Thomas
Jefferson - Declaration of Independence (1776) |
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"We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness." |
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Abraham Lincoln (1863)
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"Four
score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged
in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation
so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on
a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this. But 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. The
world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. 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." |
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Theodore Roosevelt (1899)
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I
wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine
of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor
and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes,
not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who
does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil,
and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. |
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Winston Churchill (1940)
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"We
shall not flag or fail. 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." |
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Winston Churchill (1940)
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"Let
us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves
that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a
thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" |
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Douglas MacArthur's (circa 1942)
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"Build
me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he
is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he's afraid;
one who will be proud of unbending in honest defeat, and humble
and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishbone will not be where his backbone
should be; a son who will know Thee - and that to know himself
is the foundation stone of knowledge.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under
the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let
him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion
for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be
high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master
other men; one who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how
to weep; one who will reach into the future yet never forget
the past.
After all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense
of humor, so that he may not always be serious, yet never take
himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always
remember the simplicity of true strength.
Then, I his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived
in vain." " |
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John F. Kennedy (1961)
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"Let every nation know, whether it wishes
us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden,
meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in
order to assure the survival and the success of liberty...
In the long history of the world, only a few
generations have been granted the role of defending freedom
in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I
welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange
places with any other people or any other generation. The
energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor
will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow
from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can
do for you—ask what you can do for your country."
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Douglas MacArthur (1962)
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""Duty,"
"Honor," "Country" — those three hallowed
words reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be,
what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage
when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems
to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes
forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction,
that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor
to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but
a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic,
every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say,
some others of an entirely different character, will try to
downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic
character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians
of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know
when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you
are afraid." |
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1963)
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Let
us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today,
my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations
of the moment, 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 one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be
able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have
a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert
state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression,
will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I
have a dream that my four 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. |
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