Television

Whenever Tim Brooke-Taylor put on 'Land of Hope And Glory'.

Lonni Jung: And what do you sacrifice?

Luthen Rael: Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything! You’ll stay with me, Lonni. I need all the heroes I can get.

"It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness - that is life." — Jean Luc Picard

Commander Adama's speech at the start of the war with the Cylons.

"How? Why? That doesn't matter any more. What does matter is that as of this moment, we are at war"

Impeccable delivery.

DS9 "In the Pale Moonlight"

So I lied, I cheated, I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning thing of all, I think I can live with it.

Brooks' delivery makes you able to buy the subversion of every moral espoused in 40 years of Star Trek. I don't know if it would land as well if you weren't already steeped in the show, but it's incredible to watch the first time if you are.

Jeff Daniel’s in The Newsroom talking about what we used to be and could be.

E B Farnum's monologue in Deadwood. It was completely unexpected from both the actor and the character. It was a genuinely amazing piece of acting.

One of my favorite ones is from a movie named God bless America, where the male main protagonist gets into a conversation with a fellow office worker

Frank: Oh, I get, and I am offended. Not because I've got a problem with bitter, predictable, whiny, millionaire disk jockeys complaining about celebrities or how tough their life is, while I live in an apartment with paper-thin walls next to a couple of Neanderthals who, instead of a baby, decided to give birth to some kind of nocturnal civil defense air-raid siren that goes off every fin' night like it's Pearl Harbor. I'm not offended that they act like it's my responsibility to protect their rights to pick on the weak like pack animals, or that we're supposed to support their freedom of speech when they don't give a f about yours or mine.

Office Worker: So, you're against free speech now? That's in the Bill of Rights, man.

Frank: I would defend their freedom of speech if I thought it was in jeopardy. I would defend their freedom of speech to tell uninspired, bigoted, blowj*b, gay-bashing, racist and rape jokes all under the guise of being edgy, but that's not the edge. That's what sells. They couldn't possibly pander any harder or be more commercially mainstream, because this is the "Oh no, you didn't say that!" generation, where a shocking comment has more weight than the truth. No one has any shame anymore, and we're supposed to celebrate it. I saw a woman throw a used tampon at another woman last night on network television, a network that bills itself as "Today's Woman's Channel". Kids beat each other blind and post it on Youtube. I mean, do you remember when eating rats and maggots on Survivor was shocking? It all seems so quaint now. I'm sure the girls from "2 Girls 1 Cup" are gonna have their own dating show on VH-1 any day now. I mean, why have a civilization anymore if we no longer are interested in being civilized?

The Monty Python argument ofc.