TO MEMORIZE

Interested in making memorization a more integral part of your household? Below are a few great possibilities. (They were requirements for the Clarkson kids!) All are widely available in literary and historical anthologies or online.

Scripture

  • Psalm 1, 19, 23, 91, 103, 139
  • Isaiah 40
  • John 1
  • Matthew 5
  • Galatians 5:16-25
  • Ephesians 3:14-20
  • Romans 8
  • Hebrews 11
  • Matthew 11:29

Poetry

  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “Ulysses.”
  • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” (Sonnet 43).
  • Dickinson, Emily. “‘Hope’ is the things with feathers.”
  • Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.”
  • Hardy, Thomas. “The Darkling Thrush.”
  • Henley, William Ernest. “Invictus.”
  • Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.”
  • Keats, John. “Endymion.”
  • Kipling, Rudyard. “If.”
  • Shakespeare, Robert Louis. “Sonnet 29.”
  • Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Requiem.”
  • Whitman, Walt. “A Noiseless Patient Spider.”
  • Wordsworth, William. “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.”

Historical Speeches and Documents

  • Churchill, Winston. “We shall fight on the beaches” speech. Delivered June 4, 1940 to the House of Commons, London.
  • Faulkner, William. Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Delivered December 10, 1950, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • Henry, Patrick. “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. Delivered March 23, 1775, Richmond, VA.
  • Jefferson, Thomas. Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Final text approved July 4, 1776.
  • King, Martin Luther. “I have a dream” speech. Delivered August 28, 1963, Washington, DC.
  • Lincoln, Abraham. Gettysburg Address. Delivered November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
  • Wilberforce, William. Abolition speech. Delivered May 12, 1789 to the House of Commons, London.