英语励志演讲稿（精选8篇）
好的演讲稿可以引导听众，使听众能更好地理解演讲的内容。随着社会不断地进步，能够利用到演讲稿的场合越来越多，大家知道演讲稿的格式吗？下面是小编精心整理的英语励志演讲稿，供大家参考借鉴，希望可以帮助到有需要的朋友。
英语励志演讲稿1
You will live every single day of your life with absolute passion, and you will show your passion through the words you speak and the actions you take.
You will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your life. You will never succumb to challenges of hardships.
You will never waver in your pursuit of excellence. After all,you are the best, and you deserve the best!
As your coach and friend, I can assure you the door to all the best things in the world will open to you, but the key to that door is in your hand. You must do your part, you must faithfully follow the plans you make and take the actions you plan, you must never quit, you must never fear. I know you must do it, you can do it, you will do it, and you will succeed!
Now stand firm and tall, make a fist, get excited, and yell it out:
I must do it! I can do it! I will do it! I will succeed!
译文：你将生活的每一天你的生活有绝对的激情，你会显示您的热情，通过你说的话和你的行动。
你将集中所有的时间和精力的最重要目标的生活。你将永远不会屈服于挑战困难。
你决不会动摇在您的追求卓越。毕竟，你是最好的，你应该得到最好的!
正如你的教练和朋友，我可以向你保证的大门向所有的最好的事情在世界将开放给你，但关键的门是在你的手。你必须做你的一部分，你必须忠实地按照你的`计划，并采取行动你计划，您必须从没有放弃过，你绝不能害怕。我知道你必须这样做，你可以做到这一点，你会做到这一点，你会成功!
现在，立场坚定，身材高大，握拳，兴奋，并大叫出来：
我必须这么做!我能做到这一点!我将做到这一点!我会成功!
英语励志演讲稿2
a poet leads me to a branch road: on one side, there are lots of sweet apples, lovely and charming; on the other, there is a patch of thorn, what hides behind the success of struggling against the thorn is a splendid palace. i deeply know that if i choose the apples, i will give up a precious opportunity of becoming a queen; while if i choose to challenge, i have to say farewell to the apples. which one should i choose?
just like the branch road, we have to make a lot of choices during our lifetime. it is usually considered that we are choosing what to gain, to own, but in my opinion, we are just choosing to give up.
choosing to be a teacher means giving up the life as rich as a business man;
choosing to be a top student means giving up much leisure time in front of the tv.
sure, its a torture, but we must judge carefully what is more important, then give up the others. dont think of them any more, just focus all your spirit on what you are doing.
i myself, who is standing here, have already chosen to challenge in such a great competition, so i have to give up ten days of normal classes in school and relaxation without pressure. but i am still pleased, because giving up properly makes me stick to my choice.
lets return to our branch road, which one will your choose? i choose to challenge here!
一位诗人把我引到一个岔路口：一边是甘甜的苹果，鲜艳而诱人;另一边是一条荆棘之路，但隐藏在与荆棘搏斗的成功之后是一座富丽的宫殿。我深深地明白：如果我选择那些苹果，我将失去一个可能成为女王的良机，与此同时，如果我选择挑战那些荆棘，那会很艰辛，而且我又必须与可爱的苹果告别，我该选择哪一个呢?
正如这个岔路口一般，生活中的我们面临多种选择。人们通常认为，我们在选择去获得什么，拥有什么，但在我看来，我们在选择放弃什么。
选择作一名老师意味着放弃了像商人一样奢华富有的生活。
选择作一名顶尖学生意味着放弃了许多在电视机前的闲暇时间。
当然，放弃的选择是一种苦难，但我们必须用心审度，什么对自己来说更为重要，做出选择，然后放弃其他，不要再回首想那些已放弃的东西，把精力集中于你正在做的事。
站在这里的我，已选择了在这样大规模的比赛中挑战自我，所以我必须放弃十天的正常功课和没有压力的轻松感。但我依然高兴，因为适宜的放弃之后，我更加专注于自己的选择。
让我们回到那个岔路口吧，你会选择哪一个呢?我，选择挑战此地！
英语励志演讲稿3
Saying goodbye to childhood,we step into another important time in the pace of young,facing new situations,dealing with different problems……
Everyone has his own understanding of young,it is a period of time of beauty and wonders,only after you have experienced the sour ,sweet ,bitter and salty can you really become a person of significance.
The time of young is limited,it may pass by without your attention,and when you discover what has happened ,it is always too late.grasping the young well means a better time is waiting for you in the near future,or the situation may be opposite .
Having a view on these great men in the history of human being,they all made full use of their youth time ,to do things that are useful to society,to the whole mankind,and as a consequence ,they are remembered by later generations,admired by everyone.so do something in the time of young,although you may not get achievements as these great man did ,though not for the whole word,just for yourself,for those around!
The young is just like blooming flowers,they are so beautiful when blooming,they make people feel happy,but with time passing by,after they withers ,most people think they are ugly.
And so it is the same with young,we are enthusiastic when we are young,then we may lose our passion when getting older and older.
So we must treasure it ,dont let the limited time pass by ,leaving nothing of significance.
英语励志演讲稿4
I believe in our future
Honorable Judges, fellow students:
Good afternoon!
Recently, ther is a heated debate in our society. The college students are the beneficiaries of a rare privilege, who receive exceptional education at
extraordinary places. But will we be able to face the challenge and support ourselves against all oddsWill we be able to better the lives of othersWill we be able to accept the responsibility of building the future of our country
The cynics say the college students are the pampered lost generation, which would cringe at the slightest discomfort. But the cynics are wrong. The college students I see are eagerly learning about how to live independently. We help each other clean the dormitory, go shopping and bargain together, and take part time jobs to supplement our pocket money.
The cynics say we care for nothing other than grades; and we neglect the need for character cultivation. But again, the cynics are wrong. We care deeply for each other, we cherish freedom, we treasure justice, and we seek truth. Last week, thousands of my fellow students had their blood type tested in order to make a contribution for the children who suffer from blood cancer.
As college students, we are adolescents at the critical turning point in our lives. We all face a fundamental choice: cynicism or faith, each will profoundly impact our future, or even the future of our country. I believe in all my fellow classmates. Though we are still inexperienced and even a little bit childish. I believe that we have the courage and faith to meet any challenge and take on our responsibilities. We are preparing to assume new responsibilities and tasks, and to use the education we have received to make our world a better place. I believe
in our future.
英语励志演讲稿5
Change The Ingredients Of Your Life
This is a glass of water, tasteless, rightHowever if you add sugar, it will taste sweet, but if you add vinegar, it will become bitter. The same is true with our life the flavor is created by our choices.
If kindness is added to a strange you will have a friend; but if hostility is added, you will have an enemy. If love is added to a pile of red bricks you will have a home, but if hatred is add to those bricks , you will have an concentration camp.
So my dear friends, never complain that life is boring and the world is disappointing. If don’t like the taste of your life, change the ingredients.Three year ago, I weighed more than 100 hundred kilograms which caused
significant embarrassment and frustration in my life. Like always failing my P.E examinations, like always being laughed at by girls, like being terrified to speak in public. It was my grandmother’s encouragement that revived from my passive attitude to become confident in myself. She said “ My dear, if you can’t change you figure, why not treat it as your own style. So I began to cautiously employ the new way of thinking. By choosing to change my outlook on life, I developed the confidence to make a difference and finally I found a totally new world.
So my dear friend, if faith, hope, love, endurance are added to your life, you will find the confidence to conquer your limitation and embrace new challenges. And hopefully with my speech included, you will have a fantastic speech contest.
英语励志演讲稿6
As you slowly open your eyes, look around , notice where the light comes into your room; listen carefully, see if there are new sounds you can recognize; feel with your body and spirit, and see if you can sense the freshnein the air.
Yes, yes, yes, it#39;s a new day, it#39;s a different day, and it#39;s a bright day! And most importantly, it is a new beginning for your life, a beginning where you are going to make new desicisions, take new actions, make new friends, and take your life to a totally unprecedented level!
In your mind#39;s eye, you can see clearly the things you want to have, the paces you intend to go, the relationships you desire to develop, and the positions you aspire to reach.
You can hear your laughters of joy and happineon the day when everything happens as you dream.
You can see the smiles on the people around you when the magic moment strikes.
You can feel your face is getting red, your heart is beating fast, and your blood is rushing all over your body, to every single corner of your being!
You know all this is real as long as you are confident,passionate and committed! And you are confident, you are passionate, you are committed!
You will no longer fear ma-ki-ng new sounds, showing new facial expressions, using your body in new ways,approaching new people, and asking new questions.
You will live every single day of your life with absolute passion, and you will show your passion through the words you speak and the actions you take.
You will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your life. You will never succumb to challenges of hardships.
You will never waver in your pursuit of excellence. After all,you are the best, and you deserve the best!
As your coach and friend, I can assure you the door to all the best things in the world will open to you, but the key to that door is in your hand. You must do your part, you must faithfully follow the plans you make and take the actions you plan, you must never quit, you must never fear. I know you must do it, you can do it, you will do it, and you will succeed! Now stand firm and tall, make a fist, get excited, and yell it out:
I must do it! I can do it! I will do it! I will succeed!
英语励志演讲稿7
Students, I think we all should know that in today’s society there is such a phenomenon: the ability to have the same diploma and two male and female college students, at the same time to a company for employment, male college students have been successfully employed, while the female students had refused the door to things, went unheeded.
This phenomenon is really hard to understand me, can not do female students really going to do? This concept is still dominated by a considerable portion of the human mind, my side has such a father he is also reasonable to know the book up, his daughter and son in the same college may be his daughter on the sophomore, perform better than large 1:00 downgraded a bit, so, he lamented together: "Oh, that female university students in the end is not enough!"
Dear female college students who listened to these words that you can not do sorry? As a female college student, I am sad, but sad to think the future is.
Who says that female college students not work! This is undoubtedly a kind of ignorance. Maybe they thought that the world famous Maria Curie was actually male scientists? And wrote "Health as an outstanding personality, death is also a ghost-hung," the famous Li Qingzhao was a bearded man in a bar! As to who was the honorary chairman of the American Physical Society, Dr. Wu - the Chinese-American born in our home until she returned home drilled cars, many people by surprise, was actually female President!
Female college students, please for the time being to worry Geqi, you and me she was the face of these heroic achievements Girls Do not envy, does not admire, do not worry?
You can read the Chinese women’s volleyball team’s training? Some say: "China Sports No!" Well, no? Come, and worked hard! Hen Da! Hard! How kind! Not yet do? Laureate of both hands to come back again and again, the international reputation in the Da-Zhen, national jubilation, they are not fighting it are those girls come from?
Speak louder than words, OK! Really OK! Female college students, first and foremost is that we should get rid of the shackles of worldly prejudices, for example, some female students because of exams did not go well, they blame themselves: "I am stupid, well, who told me it was a girl!" Worry-free speech That implication is that boys smarter than girls on this.
Ridiculous? Dear female college students, whether you admit it stupid? Hegel said: "low self-esteem is often accompanied by such a lazy ... ... humility is worthless." Why low self-esteem, just because he was a girl do? Inferiority of the result is negative, confusion, and negative, confusion, the real root cause is impossible, the wheelchair girl, Zhang Haidi himself stricker with illness, her low self-esteem do? Torrent emerged in the reform of the large number of female county, female managers, 38 red-banner pacesetter ... ... they are at a loss do? Their achievements tell us: female college students, quickly wiped away tears, the self-esteem, self-cheap were all dumped into the Pacific Ocean, Fit, with our own actions to declare war on the secular bias bar!
Of course, the girls developmental stage, due to physical reasons, physical and intellectual may be some impact, but if we all like the women’s volleyball team as a backbone of the girl, along with Yuan Weimin, a large number of support as a good coach, are there any stumbling block it can not be destroyed? And who will not believe that "genius is 99 percent plus one percent inspiration sweat" is the wisdom it? I remember, in the Bohai University studying a classmate last semester of her other grades are good, that is, math is not very good, it was said: "The female students, have achieved some results on the almost." But she believed in evil, seize the weak links, assiduously, Sindre sweat finally earned the fruitful achievements in the mathematics competition in March of this year, she finally took a prize, in private she was pleased to me, said: "Well! I Jiubu Xin male students must be better than I OK! "
Well, we really put forward a female college student in the oath-taking rally to those who still have prejudices about people who have loudly announced: Check it out, female college students really do not work? In the future Yeah, you and I that she who is an engineer? Who are the scientists? Who are the writers? Jin-guo and excelling in their profession dare to compete against! Let Let’s Bibi Kan bar!
Female college students, progressive bar!
Thank you!
英语励志演讲稿8
《Winston Churchill"s Iron Curtain Speech》
Winston Churchill presented his Sinews of Peace, （the Iron Curtain Speech）， at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946 .
President McCluer, ladies and gentlemen, and last, but certainly not least, the President of the United States of America:
I am very glad indeed to come to Westminster College this afternoon, and I am complimented that you should give me a degree from an institution whose reputation has been so solidly established. The name Westminster somehow or other seems familiar to me. I feel as if I have heard of it before. Indeed now that I come to think of it, it was at Westminster that I received a very large part of my education in politics, dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we have both been educated at the same, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments.
It is also an honor, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps almost unique, for a private visitor to be introduced to an academic audience by the President of the United States. Amid his heavy burdens, duties, and responsibilities--unsought but not recoiled from--the President has traveled a thousand miles to dignify and magnify our meeting here to-day and to give me an opportunity of addressing this kindred nation, as well as my own countrymen across the ocean, and perhaps some other countries too. The President has told you that it is his wish, as I am sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself of this freedom, and feel the more right to do so because any private ambitions I may have cherished in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. Let me however make it clear that I have no official mission or status of any kind, and that I speak only for myself. There is nothing here but what you see.
I can therefore allow my mind, with the experience of a lifetime, to play over the problems which beset us on the morrow of our absolute victory in arms, and to try to make sure with what strength I have that what has gained with so much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory and safety of mankind.
Ladies and gentlemen, the United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here and now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that the constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.
President McCluer, when American military men approach some serious situation they are wont to write at the head of their directive the words over-all strategic concept. There is wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought. What then is the over-all strategic concept which we should inscribe to-day? It is nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands. And here I speak particularly of the myriad cottage or apartment homes where the wage-earner strives amid the accidents and difficulties of life to guard his wife and children from privation and bring the family up the fear of the Lord, or upon ethical conceptions which often play their potent part.
To give security to these countless homes, they must be shielded form two gaunt marauders, war and tyranny. We al know the frightful disturbance in which the ordinary family is plunged when the curse of war swoops down upon the bread-winner and those for whom he works and contrives. The awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished glories, and of large parts of Asia glares us in the eyes. When the designs of wicked men or the aggressive urge of mighty States dissolve over large areas the frame of civilized society, humble folk are confronted with difficulties with which they cannot cope. For them is all distorted, all is broken, all is even ground to pulp.
When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to visualize what is actually happening to millions now and what is going to happen in this period when famine stalks the earth. None can compute what has been called the unestimated sum of human pain. Our supreme task and duty is to guard the homes of the common people from the horrors and miseries of another war. We are all agreed on that.
Our American military colleagues, after having proclaimed their over-all strategic concept and computed available resources, always proceed to the next step -- namely, the method. Here again there is widespread agreement. A world organization has already been erected for the prime purpose of preventing war. UNO, the successor of the League of Nations, with the decisive addition of the United States and all that that means, is already at work. We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon a rock. Anyone can see with his eyes open that our path will be difficult and also long, but if we persevere together as we did in the two world wars -- though not, alas, in the interval between them -- I cannot doubt that we shall achieve our common purpose in the end.
I have, however, a definite and practical proposal to make for action. Courts and magistrates may be set up but they cannot function without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations Organization must immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force. In such a matter we can only go step by step, but we must begin now. I propose that each of the Powers and States should be invited to dedicate a certain number of air squadrons to the service of the world organization. These squadrons would be trained and prepared in their own countries, but would move around in rotation from one country to another. They would wear the uniforms of their own countries but with different badges. They would not be required to act against their own nation, but in other respects they would be directed by the world organization. This might be started on a modest scale and it would grow as confidence grew. I wished to see this done after the first world war, and I devoutly trust that it may be done forthwith.
It would nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, be wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organization, while still in its infancy. It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and un-united world. No one country has slept less well in their beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw materials to apply it, are present largely retained in American hands. I do not believe we should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or neo-Facist State monopolized for the time being these dread agencies. The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences appalling to human imagination. God has willed that this shall not be and we have at least a breathing space to set our world house in order before this peril has to be encountered: and even then, if no effort is spared, we should still possess so formidable a superiority as to impose effective deterrents upon its employment, or threat of employment, by others. Ultimately, when the essential brotherhood of man is truly embodied and expressed in a world organization with all the necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would naturally be confided to that world organizations.
Now I come to the second of the two marauders, to the second danger which threatens the cottage homes, and the ordinary people -- namely, tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the United States and throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments to a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police. It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war. but we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice -- let us practice what we preach.
though I have now stated the two great dangers which menace the home of the people, War and Tyranny, I have not yet spoken of poverty and privation which are in many cases the prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt that science and cooperation can bring in the next few years, certainly in the next few decades, to the world, newly taught in the sharpening school of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything that has yet occurred in human experience.
Now, at this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in the hunger and distress which are the aftermath of our stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may pass quickly, and there is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which should deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of plenty. I have often used words which I learn fifty years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran, There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and peace. So far I feel that we are in full agreement.
Now, while still pursing the method -- the method of realizing our over-all strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I have traveled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for generality, and I will venture to the precise. Fraternal association requires not only the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relations between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world. This would perhaps double the mobility of the American Navy and Air Force. It would greatly expand that of the British Empire forces and it might well lead, if and as the world calms down, to important financial savings. Already we use together a large number of islands; more may well be entrusted to our joint care in the near future.
the United States has already a Permanent Defense Agreement with the Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached to the British Commonwealth and the Empire. This Agreement is more effective than many of those which have been made under formal alliances. This principle should be extended to all the British Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever happens, and thus only, shall we be secure ourselves and able to works together for the high and simple causes that are dear to us and bode no ill to any. Eventually there may come -- I feel eventually there will come -- the principle of common citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny, whose outstretched arm many of us can already clearly see.
There is however an important question we must ask ourselves. Would a special relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our over-riding loyalties to the World Organization? I reply that, on the contrary, it is probably the only means by which that organization will achieve its full stature and strength. There are already the special United States relations with Canada that I have just mentioned, and there are the relations between the United States and the South American Republics. We British have also our twenty years Treaty of Collaboration and Mutual Assistance with Soviet Russia. I agree with Mr. Bevin, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, that it might well be a fifty years treaty so far as we are concerned. We aim at nothing but mutual assistance and collaboration with Russia. The British have an alliance with Portugal unbroken since the year 1384, and which produced fruitful results at a critical moment in the recent war. None of these clash with the general interest of a world agreement, or a world organization; on the contrary, they help it. In my father"s house are many mansions. Special associations between members of the United Nations which have no aggressive point against any other country, which harbor no design incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, far from being harmful, are beneficial and, as I believe, indispensable.
I spoke earlier, ladies and gentlemen, of the Temple of Peace. Workmen from all countries must build that temple. If two of the workmen know each other particularly well and are old friends, if their families are intermingled, if they have faith in each other"s purpose, hope in each other"s future and charity towards each other"s shortcomings -- to quote some good words I read here the other day -- why cannot they work together at the common task as friends and partners? Why can they not share their tools and thus increase each other"s working powers? Indeed they must do so or else the temple may not be built, or, being built, it may collapse, and we should all be proved again unteachable and have to go and try to learn again for a third time in a school of war incomparably more rigorous than that from which we have just been released. The dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short. Do not let us take the course of allowing events to drift along until it is too late. If there is to be a fraternal association of the kind of I have described, with all the strength and security which both our countries can derive from it, let us make sure that that great fact is known to the world, and that it plays its part in steadying and stabilizing the foundations of peace. There is the path of wisdom. Prevention is better than the cure.
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately light by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a b admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshall Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome, or should welcome, constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you. It is my duty to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone -- Greece with its immortal glories -- is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of occupied Germany by showing special favors to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westward, in accordance with an earlier agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had conquered.
If no the Soviet Government tries, by separate action , to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the American and British zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts -- and facts they are -- this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the b parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen the United States, against their wished and their traditions, against arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, twice we have seen them drawn by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation have occurred. Twice the United State has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with our Charter. That I feel opens a course of policy of very great importance.
In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. In Italy the Communist Party is seriously hampered by having to support the Communist-trained Marshal Tito"s claims to former Italian territory at the head of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy hangs in the balance. Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a b France. All my public life I never last faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now. However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for anyone to have recite on the morrow a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains.
The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might no extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last for a further 18 months from the end of the German war. In this country you all so well-informed about the Far East, and such devoted friends of China, that I do not need to expatiate on the situation there.
I have, however, felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike in the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was a minister at the time of the Versailles treaty and a close friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was the head of the British delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with many things that were done, but I have a very b impression in my mind of that situation, and I find it painful to contrast it with that which prevails now. In those days there were high hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars were over and that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not see or feel that same confidence or event he same hopes in the haggard world at the present time.
On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable; still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. If the Western Democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If however they become divided of falter in their duty and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.
Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken here and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. there never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We surely, ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you, surely, we must not let it happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, by reaching a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections. There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this Address to which I have given the title, The Sinews of Peace.
Let no man underrate the abiding power of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Because you see the 46 millions in our island harassed about their food supply, of which they only grow one half, even in war-time, or because we have difficulty in restarting our industries and export trade after six years of passionate war effort, do not suppose we shall not come through these dark years of privation as we have come through the glorious years of agony. Do not suppose that half a century from now you will not see 70 or 80 millions of Britons spread about the world united in defense of our traditions, and our way of life, and of the world causes which you and we espouse. If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States with all that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security. If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength seeking no one"s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men; if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for our time, but for a century to come.
