What was the greatest speech ever—historical or fictional?

Inspired by an Atlantic Monthly article, Ragan.com asks around. ‘We shall fight on the beaches’? Sure. But ‘soft, wet kisses’ from ‘Bull Durham’? Ewwww.

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What was the greatest speech, historical or fictional, ever given?

The current edition of The Atlantic Monthly publishes readers’ thoughts on the matter. (Please scroll down to “The Big Question.”)

Favorites include an Oct. 14, 1912, address by President Theodore Roosevelt, delivered after being shot in the chest (“It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose”).

The magazine even offered huzzahs for Kevin Costner’s cringe-inducing soliloquy in “Bull Durham”: “I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.”

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