A. High School Impromptu Event Prompts
Round 1
Speaker 1
“The future rewards those who press on.” --Barack Obama
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” --Robert Collier
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” --Vidal SassoonSpeaker 2
“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” --Thomas Paine
“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” --Alfred Mercier
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” --Elbert HubbardSpeaker 3
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” --Confucius
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” --Mark Twain
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” --Henry FordSpeaker 4
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.” --Nelson Mandela
“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” --H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.” --Erik EriksonSpeaker 5
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” --Jimi Hendrix
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” --Helen Keller
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” --Anatole FranceSpeaker 6
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” --Mahatma Gandhi
“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered.” --Orison Swett Marden
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” --Winston ChurchillSpeaker 7
“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” --Chinese Proverb
“The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” --William James
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time.” --Joel A. Barker
Round 2
Speaker 1
“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’” --Napoleon Hill
“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” --Jean de La FontaineSpeaker 2
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.” --Albert Einstein
“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.” --Confucius
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” --Leonardo da VinciSpeaker 3
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” --Nelson Mandela
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” --Plato
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” --Thomas EdisonSpeaker 4
“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.” --John Holt
“The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.” --Horace Bushnell
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” --Harry S. TrumanSpeaker 5
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” --William James
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” --Eleanor Roosevelt
“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” --Lou HoltzSpeaker 6
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” --Babe Ruth
“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” --George Eliot
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” --SocratesSpeaker 7
“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.” --Marcus Aurelius
“The best thinking has been done in solitude.” --Thomas Edison
“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” --Franklin D. RooseveltSpeaker 8
1. information
2. calmness
3. Tolerance
Speaker 9
1. Compassion
2. Confidence
3. Mercy
Speaker 10
1. Communication
2. loyalty
3. Elegance
Round 3
Speaker 1
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” --Mahatma Gandhi
“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” --Anton Chekhov
“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” --William Arthur WardSpeaker 2
“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” --Confucius
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” --Henry Ford
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” --George Bernard ShawSpeaker 3
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” --John A. Shedd
“What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” --Ralph Marston
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” --F.M. AlexanderSpeaker 4
“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” --Voltaire
“It is not length of life, but depth of life.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” --John RuskinSpeaker 5
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” --Abraham Lincoln
“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.” --Tommy Lasorda
“One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” --EuripidesSpeaker 6
“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.” --Epicurus
“Wisdom outweighs any wealth.” --Sophocles
“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” --Bobby UnserSpeaker 7
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” --James Oppenheim
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” --Friedrich Nietzsche
“Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life.” --John WoodenSpeaker 8
1. A needle is not sharp at both ends.
2. The longest mile is the last mile home.
3. Tis better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there’s no money!
Speaker 9
1. A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is for.
2. Shrouds have no pockets.
3. A candle lights others and consumes itself.
Speaker 10
1. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
2. Cowards die many times before their deaths.
3. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Elim 1: A/B - Prelim 2: J
Speaker 1
1. The wound is the place where the light enters you. - Rumi
2. A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. - Lao Tzu
3. If you allow the government to break the law because of an emergency, they'll always create an emergency to break the law. - Alexandra Lains
Speaker 2
1. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. - Albert Einstein
2. Activism has been very productive in our society. - Anthony Fauci
3. “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” - — Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 3
1. “At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and nobody knew it.” - — Unknown
2. It's really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it's the opposite that's true: What we are ultimately determines what we do! - Fred Rogers
3. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Speaker 4
1. “Don't confuse my personality with my attitude. My personality is who I am, my attitude depends on who you are.” - — Frank Ocean
2. “At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.
3. “I'd rather be No.2 forever than No. 1 for a while.” - — Paul Smith
Speaker 5
1. Being dead is like being stupid: it's only painful for others.
2. If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor. - Eleanor Roosevelt
3. “I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work.” - — Henry Ford
Speaker 6
1. The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Benjamin Franklin
2. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
3. He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals. - Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 7
1. Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies. - Ann Landers
2. If you're gonna be the death of me, that's how I wanna go. - Bridgerton
3. Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it. - Alice Walker