Top 10 Greatest Speeches

As the political season heats up, TIME takes a tour of history's best rhetoric

Ronald Reagan

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Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, 1987

When Reagan issued his famous challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin, the speech earned mixed reviews. Even members of the President's own team were lukewarm on it. But in 1989, the Berlin Wall was demolished, and today the address is remembered, in the words of the German newspaper Bild, as a speech that "changed the world."

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Best Line: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

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