Websites for Speakers

 

 

Dictionaries

• OneLook is an outstanding collection of dictionaries and glossaries.

 

Newspapers & Magazines

• NewsDirectory searches newspapers and magazines by country, title, and subject.
• The Paperboy has links to over 6000 newspapers.
• The Magazine Boy browses magazines by subject.

 

Index to the Internet

• LII is the outstanding librarians’ index to the Internet.

 

Native American Tales

• Aadizookaanag is a good resource for traditional stories, legends and myths.

 

Proverbs, Quotations and Aphorisms

• Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature.
• Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations contains words of wit and wisdom from such modern notables as Ezra Pound, Henry Kissinger, George Orwell, Dorothy Parker, and Desmond Tutu.
• Creative Quotations spruces up speeches.  Proverbs from more than 300 countries and cultures.
• Famous Quotations Network is searchable by category, author, and country.
• Aphorisms Galore! has wide-ranging categories:  art & literature, science & religion, work & recreation, etc.

 

History

• The University of Oklahoma’s College of Law provides historical speeches and political documents – from pre-Colonial era to present United States.
• The Biographical Dictionary searches by birth years, death years, titles, professions, literary or artistic works and key achievements.
• IdeaBank has a particularly good “History Today” file that offers well-researched material for each day of the year.  Fee based.
• With Infoplease you can tie historical events to the date of your speech.
• dMarie Time Capsule has fun trivia for birthdays and anniversaries, newspaper headlines, sports stories, pop songs, etc.

 

Speech Texts

• The History Channel has speeches by business, political, and academic leaders.
• Gifts of Speech has interesting speeches by prominent women around the world.
• In The History Place’s Great Speeches Collection, you’ll find a wide assortment of speech texts: from St. Francis of Assisi’s “Sermon to the Birds” to Lou Gehrig’s “Farewell to Yankee Fans” to Bill Clinton’s “I Have Sinned.”
• The Churchill Centre presents many of the most memorable speeches, quotations, and anecdotes of Winston Churchill.