Driven Wisdom

Speeches

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 

Theodore Roosevelt  1910

 

 

 

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

 

I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

 

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

 

Neil Kinnock  1983

 

 

 

You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise with those who want to use it to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished.

 

Margaret Thatcher  1985

 

 

 

"Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. “Or you can go that way and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.” He paused and stared into the officer’s eyes and heart. “To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do. Which way will you go?

 

Col John R. Boyd, USAF  2007

 

 

 

Evening all. Welcome to This Week. The week in which a bunch of loser jihadists slaughtered 132 innocents in Paris to prove the future belongs to them rather than a civilisation like France.

 

Well I can’t say I fancy their chances. France, the country of Descartes, Boulet, Monet, Sartre, Rousseau, Camus, Renoir, Berlioz, Cézanne, Gauguin, Hugo, Voltaire, Matisse, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Satie, Pasteur, Molière, Franck, Zola, Balzac, Poulenc.

 

Cutting edge science, world class medicine, fearsome security forces, nuclear power, Coco Chanel, Chateau Lafite, Coq Au Vin, Daft Punk, Zizou Zidane, Juliette Binoche, liberté, égalité, fraternité, and crème brûlée.

 

Versus what? Beheadings, crucifixions, amputations, slavery, mass murder, medieval squalor, a death cult barbarity that would shame the Middle Ages.

 

Well IS or Daesh or ISIS or ISIL or whatever name you’re going by – I’m sticking with IS, as in Islamist scumbags – I think the outcome is pretty clear to everybody but you.

 

Whatever atrocities you’re currently capable of committing, you will lose.

 

In 1,000 years’ time Paris, that glorious city of lights, will still be shining bright, as will every other city like it.

 

While you will be as dust, along with the ragbag of Fascists, Nazis and Stalinists that have previously dared to challenge democracy and failed.

 

Andrew Neil  2015

 

 

 

You think there're going to be happy to be told your past was disgusting and reprehensible but not just ordinarily reprehensible but uniquely reprehensible. None of your forebears are of any worth. Your society didn't get anything that was good other than by stealing it. What you have now, you do not deserve. You should give it to other people. You should give it to other people who look like people to whom things were done in history because you look like people who did some of the things that were done. We will ignore anything bad done by any other group of people other than you. You've got to do this for all the rest of time. Are you happy with that? You think you are going to win? You think that the British public is going to suck that up forever? You think there're going to be willing to sit there and take it as there're told that our forbears all had the best imaginable time? You think that's going to work? Oh, it might work this year. It's not going to work for very much longer and I can see the exactly what the play is that comes back which is that's a shame. We have put an awful lot of faith in this pluralistic multicultural ideal. Turns out it wasn't wanted. How do you unlit that without going to hell? These people are playing with the most dangerous elements of our society.

 

Douglas Murray  2020