Article on words that move.....

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce - On Surrender to US Army (1877)



Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men 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. 

Chief Joseph - Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain Heights – 1877

Oliver Cromwell Speech - Dissolution of the Long Parliament

Dissolution of the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell given to the House of Commons, 20 April 1653

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.  

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

 Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!

Julius Caesar Speech to Brutus by Cassius

(Cassius is trying to persuade his friend Brutus that Julius Caesar is a tyrant)

Cassius:
 Why, Caesar, he doth bestride the narrow world 
like a Colossus, and we petty men 
walk under his huge legs and peep about
 to find ourselves dishonourable graves.
 Men at some time are masters of their fates:
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
 but in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
Brutus and Caesar; why should that name be sounded more than yours?
 Write them together, yours is as fair a name; 
sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
 weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em and Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar. 
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
 upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
 that he has grown so great? Age, thou art shamed! 
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
 When went there by an age, since the great flood,
 but it was famed with more than with one man?
 When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
 that her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
 Now, is it Rome indeed and is it room enough,
when there is in it but one only man.
 O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
 there was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
 the eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
 as easily as a king.

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