The World's Best Orations

Oratory is the masterful art.

Poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspire; but oratory rules.

The orator dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their judgment, compels their action.

For the time being he is master. Through the clearness of his logic, the keenness of his wit, the power of his appeal, or that magnetic something which is felt and yet cannot be defined, or through all together, he sways his audience as the storm bends the branches of the forest.

Hence it is that in all times this wonderful power has been something longed for and striven for. Demosthenes, on the beach, struggling with the pebbles in his mouth to perfect his articulation, has been the great example. Yet it is often true of the orator, as of the poet; nascitur non fit.

Patrick Henry seemed to be inspired as "Give me liberty or give me death" rolled from his lips. The untutored savage has shown himself an orator. Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel!

Do we not all feel the magic of the power, and when occasionally we are permitted to listen to a great orator how completely we lose ourselves and yield in willing submission to the imperious and impetuous flow of his speech!