Dear speech-fans and -friends,
The best speeches delivered this last month illustrate the power of contrast and antithesis. ‘Antithesis is one of the most popular means of being quotable. It succeeds because such contrast allows you, among other things, to urge one course of action and reject another(…). It makes what (the speaker) accepts and rejects clear and easy to remember’, writes Robert Lehrman in The Political Speechwriter's Companion
Use it, but wisely, as one of the European leaders addressing the Members of the European Parliament reminds us.
For those of us who understand French, voici le lien vers une émission de radio consacrée à la rhétorique politique des présidents, de la troisième république à Barack Obama.
Find out our monthly selection on www.logospathosethos.eu
Isabelle
L’Europe n'est pas une évidence.
L'Europe fut et l'Europe restera un
choix.
Europe is not
self-evident. Europe has always been and will always be a choice.
Read
the full speech here: Jean-Claude Juncker, L'Europe aujourd'hui
et demain, 23 February 2017
This is THE book to start with as a new political speechwriter but also to go back to as an experienced speechwriter.
For this second edition, Robert Lehrman and Eric Schnure have built on their experience as chief speechwriter and speechwriter to former Vice-President Gore and as teachers mainly in the United States but also in Europe, Asia, and [...]
Read more
« Our European Union is not in a good state. There is not enough Europe in this Union. And there is not enough Union in this Union. We have to change this. And we have to change this now. President Juncker, State of the Union 2015: Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity, 9 September 2015 ... »Jean-Claude Juncker
Dear speech-fans and -friends,
Among all the speeches we come across, why
do we sometimes decide to forward one to our friends?
What does it take for a speech to go go
viral?
What does it take for a speech to have us, speech-fans and –friends, send it to our loved ones because we think it will lift their spirits?
January 2017 offered a few such examples :
First came Mery
Streep 2017 Golden Globes speech that many of you forwarded.
Then another speech got attention for "words which were surprising, honest, bold and deep. (The
speaker) used language which won over many sceptics. Newspapers were now
printing statements by (sceptics) expressing respect for the (speaker) and
taking back their earlier objections. We know that this doesn't often happen.
This is one of the reasons why we consider (this) speech extraordinary and
historic".
Last but not least, a third speech inspired
many of you in Europe, who shared it with their colleagues and friends and drew
my attention to it.
Find out which speeches they are and some
other good quotes in our monthly selection on www.logospathosethos.eu
And keep forwarding your favourite speeches.
Isabelle
Overcoming fear
(English
below)
Als ich als
11-Jähriger im Hallenbad das erste Mal auf dem Dreimeterbrett stand, hat mir
das keine Freude bereitet. Doch ein Kind, das das erste Mal da steht, weiß,
wenn es sich weiterentwickeln möchte, muss es springen. Es weiß, es muss
springen. Aber es weiß nicht, wie sich der Sprung anfühlt und wie es genau nach
dem Sprung weitergehen wird. Und doch, in den meisten Fällen, wagt es den
Schritt nach vorne. Ich habe es damals auch gewagt. Und auch den Sprung vom
Fünfmeterbrett.
Warum?
Weil die
Zuversicht stärker ist als der Zweifel… Ich
appelliere heute an Ihre Zuversicht!
As an 11year-old boy at the indoor swimming pool,
standing on the three-metre diving board for the first time did not make me
happy. But children standing there for the first time know they have to jump if
they want to make progress. They know they have to jump. But they don’t know
what this jump will feel like and what exactly will happen after the jump. And yet,
in most cases, they dare to take this step forward. I also did it back then.
And I also jumped off the five-metre diving board
Why?
Because confidence is stronger than doubt… Today I call upon your confidence!
Read the full speech here (English is below
the German text): President Alexander Van der Bellen,
Inauguration speech, 26 January 2017
Dear speech-fans and -friends,
Peace.
Peace is the recurring theme in this
month’s selection of quotes and speeches.
Peace for places as diverse as Aleppo,
Columbia, Germany, Pearl Harbor.
Peace as the most precious lesson past and
current leaders urge us to embrace.
And peace as my best wish to you, readers
of this newsletter, as we start a new year. To you, from Australia to Arizona, who
read these lines : peace.
I also recommend two webpages:
- The
outgoing White House administration reminds us that ‘behind (President Obama’s)
words is a group of speechwriters who have worked closely with the President to
craft important messages to the American people. It’s meant countless drafts
and rewrites, late nights, and last-minute edits from the motorcade. As his
time in office comes to a close, the President’s speechwriters — past and present — took a look back at eight years of remarks to share
some of the words, speeches, and memories that stand out to them.
Take a look at a few of the President’s top speeches as chosen by his speechwriters’.
- Nancy Duarte, whose books we strongly recommend in our Bibliography, has designed, together with Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an insightful test to help speakers with fear of public speaking, available on the Harvard Business Review website. Answering some 24 questions provides guidance on one’s strengths and where to focus to improve and ultimately feel … at peace when taking the floor.
You’ll find the full latest selection of quotes and speeches on http://www.logospathosethos.eu
Isabelle
Allow me to tell you, from my own experience, that it is much harder to
make peace than to wage war.
Read the full speech here: Nobel Lecture by Juan Manuel Santos, Peace in Columbia: from the impossible to the possible, 10 December 2016.
Peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or
gold.
I hope that
together, we send a message to the world that there is more to be won in peace
than in war; that reconciliation carries more rewards than retribution.
Read
the full speech here: Barack Obama, Remarks at Pearl Harbor, 28
December 2016
Read more
Dear speech-fans and -friends,
End of September, I was invited to speak at
the Professional Speechwriters Association World Conference on ‘Speeches and Speechwriting in Europe in
2016’. To prepare this talk, I looked for trends that would both refer to
Europe and be relevant for an international audience. I soon identified one
leading trend, only emerging yet obvious, and already the strongest. I spoke
about this new word capturing this new phenomenon : the ‘post-truth’ - or ‘post-fact’ - era of speeches and democracy.
From hardly used before, it is suddenly
everywhere now, from titles to articles to conferences.
Little did I know then that the Oxford
Dictionary would select it as the 2016 International Word of the Year.
It’s a real concern for our democracies,
and an additional challenge for speakers and speechwriters. All the more reason
to have a look at the speeches that matter on the European stage today.
You’ll find the latest selection of quotes
and speeches on http://www.logospathosethos.eu
Isabelle
Commemorating :
the great potential of epideictic speeches
We all know that we are living in a historic time, and
that our actions will have effects for generations to come. But we can't know
exactly what effect we will have. All we can do is to trust in our values, and
have the courage to act on them.
Read
the full speech here: Margrethe Vestager, Luther and the modern
world, 14 November 2016
On
the eve of the presidential election in the United States, our attention might
be taken away from Europe. Little surprise that First Lady Michelle Obama’s
speech that made it to the frontpages worldwide and was already suggested as speech
of the year by
Vital speeches appears in this selection.
But
our focus remains to shine a spotlight on the speeches that matter to Europe :
this month, the best lines are to be found in some of our leaders’ confessions.
They
give us food for thought and share valuable lessons for these difficult times:
‘It is an iron law that those who will be caught up in the great movements determining the course of their times always fail to recognise them in their early stages’, wrote Stefan Zweig in The world of yesterday : memoirs of a European, quoted by President of the European Council Donald Tusk, 20th anniversary of the European Policy Centre, 13 October 2016.
Isabelle
Confessions of a leader
When I gave my first policy statement ten years ago,
as Prime Minister of Poland, I spoke for nearly three hours. One of the
commentators correctly observed that had my speech been as wise as it was long,
it would have been one of the best in Polish history.
Read
the full speech here: Donald Tusk, 20th anniversary of the
European Policy Centre, 13 October 2016
Je laisse maintenant mon discours, que des mains inspirées ont rédigé, mais
en regardant la salle, je crois que je vais vous parler d'une autre façon.
Read
the full speech here: Jean-Claude Juncker, Remise du prix de
l'engagement européen, 6 octobre 2016
Read more
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