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.