Dear speech-fans and friends,
From Holocaust Remembrance Day to the World Economic
Forum to the State of the Union in Washington, January calls for great
speeches.
Here is your monthly selection of powerful lines and rhetorical tools.
Whether you craft or collect quotations, you may be
interested to read more on the power of virtuous quotes in this piece of research
published in the January-February 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review.
What will you do on March 15th, for World Speech Day ?
Let’s collect our ideas for the next issue.
Isabelle
Build the
speaker’s ethos:
Remembrance
1945
As
a German born in 1955, I did not live through the darkest times in the history
of my country. But the mass murder committed by the Nazis in the name of my
nation was the reason I became involved in politics, as I vowed: Never again. …
I
say this as a German, as a politician and as a father:
We
must keep the memory alive.
We
must tell our children about the crimes committed in Theresienstadt, in
Auschwitz, Birkenau and elsewhere. We must do so for the sake of our children,
we must tell them so that their children will tell the next generation.
Remembering
hurts, but we must teach our children how this unique crime in human history,
these barbaric acts of evil could happen in one of the most modernized
societies of that time.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Holocaust
Remembrance Day, 27 January 2016
Remembrance
1871
I
was listening to the Jussen brothers - another great Dutch contribution to
European culture - and when I heard it I did not know it, but afterwards I came
to know that the music was written by Georges Bizet in 1871. I started
reminiscing about that year, which is the year that France suffered a
humiliating defeat against Prussia, which set off a series of events which led
to two suicidal wars in Europe. After that, reconciliation between France and
Germany seemed completely impossible. So between the music of Georges Bizet and
Tourist leMC look at what has happened to this continent.
It
is one of our challenges to remember where we come from, because I think very
often we are prisoners of here and today with too little knowledge of where we
came from and daunting challenges we faced.
First Vice President Timmermans, The Future of Europe,
14 January 2016
French-speaking
readers, Lecteurs francophones,
Sur l’histoire, ce que peut
l’histoire
Ce que
peut l’histoire, ce qu’elle peut vraiment, ce qu’elle peut encore – entendez à
la fois ce qui lui est possible et ce qu’elle est en puissance…
Tout
pouvoir est pouvoir de mise en récit. Cela ne signifie pas seulement qu’il se
donne à aimer et à comprendre par des fictions politiques, des fables, des
intrigues. Cela veut dire plus profondément qu’il ne devient pleinement
efficient qu’à partir du moment où il sait réorienter les récits de vie de ceux
qu’il dirige. Mais dans le même temps, il expose de manière intelligible ce
qui, en nous traversant de tant de contraintes, peut aussi nous libérer de leur
détermination.
Patrick Boucheron,
Leçon inaugurale, Collège de France, 17 Décembre 2015
What do the « best quotes » of the Word
Economic Forum have in common?
Contrasts,
surprises, and parallelims
Here is a selection:
We’ve
heard a lot about the internet of things. I think we need an internet of Woman.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde
COP
21 was a success, but that was the easy part.
Christiana
Figueres,
Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Economic
growth doesn’t mean anything until it is inclusive growth.
John Green, author and vlogger
GDP
is not a good measure of economic performance, it’s not a good measure of well
being.
Joseph Stiglitz, Economist
The
higher you build the wall, the more you empower the smugglers.
David Miliband, President,
International rescue Committee
We
need to start sharing not the burden, but the responsibility.
European Commission Vice-President Federica Mogherini
More
contrasts:
Hearing
all this discussion about sovereignty, I maintain that Poland is now more
sovereign, more master of its own destiny than in the thousand years before it
became Member of the European Union. By pooling its sovereignty with other
European nations, for the first time in its history Poland has borders that are
no longer disputed by its neighbours.
That is true sovereignty, Madame Prime Minister; that is a true achievement of
all European nations – and Poland in the first place.
From abstract to concrete,
very concrete
I
believe a society is not measured only by its most successful researchers and
entrepreneurs. A society is also measured by its ability to care for its
weakest and most vulnerable. And that is why all throughout our efforts to grow
the economy, transform our technologies, and smarten our systems - we must
constantly stop, look back and see if anyone was left behind. (…)
If
over 10% of European households cannot afford to heat their homes properly, we
must do more. If pensioners have to sleep in the kitchen, because this is the
only warm place in the house; if children cannot do their homework because
their family was disconnected from electricity, or if people fall sick or die
early because they cannot heat or cool their homes, then our efforts clearly
have not been enough.
Vice-President Šefčovič, Launch Event Task Force on
Energy Poverty, 26 January 2016
Build a
climax:
If
anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it.
You will be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating
our
military,
most
of America’s business leaders,
the
majority of the American people,
almost
the entire scientific community,
and
200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.
President Obama, State of the Union Address, 12
January 2016
Gun
control is not on the top of Europe’s agenda – we have other issues to deal
with…
Yet, this
speech offers many hints for European speechwriters on how to build an
argument :
(Concessio & ethos)
Now,
I want to be absolutely clear at the start -- and I’ve said this over and over
again, this also becomes routine, there is a ritual about this whole thing that I have
to do -- I believe in the Second Amendment. It’s there written on the paper. It
guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist
my words around -- I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this --
(applause) -- I get it. But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun
violence consistent with the Second Amendment.
(Address
to your audience)
I
mean, think about it.
(Inclusive
'we' & indisputable example)
We
all believe in the First Amendment, the guarantee of free speech, but we accept
that you can’t yell “fire” in a theater. We understand there are some constraints
on our freedom in order to protect innocent people.
(More
inclusive 'we' & indisputable example)
We
cherish our right to privacy, but we accept that you have to go through metal
detectors before being allowed to board a plane. It’s not because people like
doing that, but we understand that that’s part of the price of living in a
civilized society.
Whom
do you quote?
-
Dr King;
-
Two United States Senators -– Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and
Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, both gun owners, both strong
defenders of our Second Amendment rights, both with “A” grades from the NRA –-
that’s hard to get -- worked together in good faith, consulting with folks like
our Vice President, who has been a champion on this for a long time, to write a
common-sense compromise;
-
Republican President George W. Bush;
-
Senator John McCain;
-
Ronald Reagan.
(Appeal
to common sense with concrete example)
If
there’s an app that can help us find a missing tablet -- which happens to me
often the older I get -- (laughter) -- if we can do it for your iPad, there’s
no reason we can’t do it with a stolen gun.
(More
appeal to common sense with concrete example)
If
a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t
pull a trigger on a gun. (Applause.) Right?
(Closing
with concessio)
Yes,
it will be hard, and it won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen during this
Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency. But a lot of things don’t
happen overnight.
(Reference
to the common history)
A
woman’s right to vote didn’t happen overnight. The liberation of African
Americans didn’t happen overnight. LGBT rights -- that was decades’ worth of
work.
(Final
call)
So
just because it’s hard, that’s no excuse not to try.
(And
remember to … give your speech a title)
President Obama, Common-Sense Gun Safety Reform, 5
January 2016
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