There are these great personalities, we know about, who had lived their lives for a cause and spent it whole either to achieve their goals or die trying it. We can remember and salute them by following in their footsteps. Some of the inspiring memorandums by such personalities, I have chosen today:
Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream
Delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds.""
Winston Churchill - We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ Speech on 4th June 1940
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
Nelson Mandela - "I am proud to die" - April 20, 1964
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Abraham Lincoln - Gettysburg Address 1863
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Emmeline Pankhurst - Freedom Or Death 1913
“Tonight I am not here to advocate woman suffrage,” she declared; “I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women.” “Women are very slow to rouse, but once they are aroused, once they are determined, nothing on earth and nothing in heaven will make women give way; it is impossible.”
Mahatma Gandhi - Quit India 1942
"I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Resolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by nonviolence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence."
They are all inspiring and full of passion. I am honored to quote a few of them
Sources:
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/historical-speeches/
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
https://mocomi.com/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches-speech/