Powerful speeches and the men who gave them

Last night while out for dinner with friends, the topic turned to timeless speeches. While Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" remains probably the most powerful and timeless speeches of them all, these are more recent, more relevant, and much more basic.

My favourite is Steve Job's commencement address given to the Stanford students in 2005. I was surprised that a friend of mine hadn't heard it. If you've gone through my blog at all, you'll know I'm a die hard Jobs fan, and I find the man absolutely fascinating and brilliant. If you haven't already, you HAVE to hear this.. and if you have, take 15 minutes out of your day and give it another listen-



The following was written by Mary Schmich in an essay titled "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" and was published  in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. It was later used in a commencement speech by authour Kurt Vonnegut, to whom it is often believed to be derived from. The most popular for of the essay is the one set to music where the lyrics are used and remixed by Baz Luhrmann in the popular single, "Everybody's free (to wear sunscreen)."



The third one is one of my favourites- "The Last Lecture," by Randy Pausch. Randy Pausch was a Professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, when in 2006, he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. On September 18, 2007, he gave a lecture called "The Last Lecture" as a legacy he wanted to leave behind for his children. The lecture was recorded, became a YouTube sensation, got published into a book that became one of the New York Times best sellers, and got Pausch to go on and give the lecture again on Oprah. This video is a little over an hour long, but is a MUST SEE. You're going to want to make your kids and parents watch it!


Pausch died of complications from Pancreatic Cancer on July 25, 2008.


If you have any other favourite speeches that you love and that inspire you, email me and I'd love to post them up as well. 
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