Notable Speakers
The Oxford Union has a long history of hosting international figures and celebrities.
- author Robert Greene
- Dalai Lama
- former British prime ministers Winston Churchill, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major
- Mother Teresa
- former US presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan
- US diplomats Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright
- former CIA director David Petraeus
- former US Presidential nominees John McCain, Newt Gingrich
- US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger
- former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf
- former Australian prime minister John Howard
- former New Zealand prime minister David Lange
- former PLO leader Yasser Arafat
- Afghan president Hamid Karzai
- Russian politician and former finance minister Grigory Yavlinsky
- notable barrister and prime-ministerial spouse Cherie Booth QC
- Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams
- scientist Albert Einstein
- physicist Stephen Hawking
- biologist Richard Dawkins debating creationist A. E. Wilder-Smith
- savant Kim Peek
- comedian and writer Stephen Fry
- former US Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy
- actress Judi Dench
- actors Johnny Depp, Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, Martin Sheen, Leslie Nielsen
- actor / directors Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty
- radio presenter Scott Mills
- comedians Frankie Howerd and Jim Bowen
- Malcolm X
- O.J. Simpson
- footballers Diego Maradona, Paul Gascoigne
- rock star Jon Bon Jovi
- pop stars Michael Jackson, Shakira, Leehom Wang
- singer and viral video star PSY
- composer Burt Bacharach
- televangelist Jerry Falwell
- magician David Blaine
- TV talk show host Jerry Springer
- singers Barry White, Gerard Way
- puppet Kermit the Frog
- fashion journalist Anna Wintour
- author John LeCarre
- international model Katia Elizarova
- musical humourist and conductor Gerard Hoffnung
- porn stars Ron Jeremy, Annabel Chong
- UFC president Dana White
- Islamic preacher Zakir Naik
- ventriloquist David Strassman
- former Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike
Read more about this topic: Oxford Union
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or speakers:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“What’s this, Aurora Leigh,
You write so of the poets and not laugh?
Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark,
Exaggerators of the sun and moon,
And soothsayers in a tea-cup? I write so
Of the only truth-tellers, now left to God,—
The only speakers of essential truth,
Opposed to relative, comparative,
And temporal truths;...
The only teachers who instruct mankind,
From just a shadow on a charnel-wall.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)