A speech read silently on a page is only half of itself.

Writing for the ear obeys different rules from writing for the eye. A reader can go back over a long sentence; a listener cannot. So speeches use shorter sentences, plainer words, and repetition that would look clumsy in an essay but is essential aloud — it gives a listener something to hold on to while the next idea arrives.

This is why you should read these texts out loud at least once. Sentences that seem plain on the page turn out to be built carefully: the stresses fall in a pattern, the important word waits until the end, and there is a pause built into the punctuation where the speaker needed the room to breathe.