Notable Speeches

Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington delivered this brief speech in May 2015 at Dillard University in New Orleans. 

Mr. Washington, a native of Mount Vernon, New York, holds a degree in theater (1977) from Fordham University in New York City. He also studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Denzel Washington won Oscars for his performances in Glory (Best Supporting Actor – 1989) and Training Day (Best Actor – 2001).

His remarks have been abridged slightly for this podcast.

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Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former presidential speechwriter (for Ronald Reagan), presented this address one year ago at the University of Notre Dame near South Bend, Ind.

She addressed the question, "How does conservatism find its best expression now, in the 21st century?" 

Peggy Noonan's books include What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (Random House 1990) and Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now (Harper, 2008.)

She has written a regular column for The Wall Street Journal since 2000.

Her commencement address has been abridged slightly for this podcast.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

Antonin Scalia served as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until his death in 2016.

In this 2015 address, presented at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Md., he poked gentle fun at the platitudes often offered in graduation speeches, such as "follow your star" and "never compromise your principles."

Justice Scalia's remarks have been abridged slightly for this podcast.

A transcript of this address, under the title "Platitudes and Wisdom," is included in the 2017 book, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum).

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984.  He has advised six U.S. presidents on domestic and international health-policy matters.

Dr. Fauci presented this address in January 2017 at an event hosted by the Center for Global Health Science and Security in Washington, D.C.

His remarks have been condensed for this podcast.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

This episode features an address by Ken Myers, host of the long-running Mars Hill Audio Journal, a bimonthly audio magazine that "encourag[es] conversations about faith, faithfulness, and culture."

Mr. Myers is also the author of All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Crossway redesign edition, 2012).

Earlier in his career, he was the arts and humanities editor for NPR's Morning Edition. 

Ken Myers presented this address in April 2019 at a Christ and Culture lecture event sponsored by the Gospel Alliance of Maine. His remarks have been condensed for this podcast.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

In a Nov. 1, 2005, speech at the National Institutes of Health, President George W. Bush laid out a plan to prepare the U.S. for a possible pandemic. 

The Bush strategy called for detecting outbreaks as early as possible anywhere in the world, stockpiling existing vaccines and antiviral drugs, speeding up the process of making new vaccines for a pandemic virus, and improving general readiness at the federal, state, and local levels.

Although the preparedness plan never reached full fruition, elements of the Bush plan formed the foundation for the U.S. response to the current coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Bush's remarks have been condensed slightly for this podcast. A transcript of his complete address is online at georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051101-1.html.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

Many churches will be empty this Easter, as the world continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this troubled time, this episode presents words of comfort and challenge from the One who rose from the grave on Easter: Jesus the Messiah.

Actor Alexander Scourby (1913-1985) reads three chapters from the Gospel According to John.

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Most people living today have never seen anything like the current coronavirus pandemic. But an even worse pandemic struck just over a century ago: the 1918 Spanish Flu. It claimed an estimated 50-to-100 million lives worldwide, including more than 600,000 in the U.S.

Dr. Jeremy Brown is the author of Influenza: The Hundred Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History (Atria Books, 2018). He is also the director of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Brown presented this address at a March 2019 event hosted by the National Archives in Washington, D.C. His remarks have been condensed for this podcast.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

Clive Staples Lewis, a professor of English literature at the UK's University of Oxford (and later at Cambridge University), became one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, with works ranging from fiction to philosophy to Christian apologetics.

This radio address, presented on the BBC on March 21, 1944, later formed the basis for a chapter in his book, Mere Christianity, first published in 1952.

C.S. Lewis died on Nov. 22, 1963, one week before his 65th birthday.

If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email [email protected].

Attorney General Bill Barr presented this address in Nashville, Tenn., on Feb. 26, 2020, at the annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters.

His remarks have been condensed slightly for this podcast.

For a text of this address (as prepared for delivery), go to https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-2020-national-religious-broadcasters

Have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast? Email [email protected].