CNN iReport

Tuesday: Senator Edward M. Kennedy  of Massachusetts,  has died. He was 77 years old as the last surviving son of his family. He leaves a legacy of voice for the working class, the poor, health care, civil rights, and for peace.

Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in ay 2008, deid at home in Hyannis Port, according to a statement released by the Kennedy family.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said.

Known as "Teddy," Kennedy led a life of triumph and tragedy. Ted comes from a generation of his own Kennedy Kind that dominated American politics in the 1960s, epitomizing glamour, political perfection and oddly, death. He was the brother of President John Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, Senator Robert Kennedy, who was fatally shot while campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, and Joe Kennedy, a pilot killed in World War Two.

On Tuesday, his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver of Potomac, Md., died at age 88. Another sister, Patricia Lawford Kennedy, died in 2006. His sister Rosemary died in 2005, and his sister Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948.

Ted Kennedy lived through the sudden deaths of three of his nephews. One of the nephews, John F. Kennedy Jr., who the family hoped would one day seek political office and keep the Kennedy tradition alive, died in a plane crash in 1999 at age 38. Mr. Kennedy himself was almost killed, in 1964, in a plane crash.

When he first stepped into his brother John's Senate seat in 1962, Ted Kennedy was seen as a political lightweight, even a nepotist to some.

But Ted Kennedy served longer than all but two senators in history, and during this near half century run, Kennedy progressively became known as one of Washington's most effective senators, marking his name on nearly every major piece of social legislation.

Senator Kennedy had an ability to pass bills like no other, not just because of his lead in liberal issues, but because of his ability to form allies with Republicans, the most recent example is when he worked with President George W. Bush to pass the No Child Left Behind education law in 2001.

But to many, Ted Kennedy was known or his oratory skills. Whether he was giving a eulogy for family or a speech for the Democratic Party, he spoke with a distinct resonance, and not just because of his "booming Boston brogue".

Here are excerpts from some of his most beautiful speeches.

On the death of Robert F. Kennedy, New York City, June 8, 1968

"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

"As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream things that never were and say, “Why not?”'"

Democratic National Convention, New York City, Aug. 12, 1980

"I have listened to young workers out of work, to students without the tuition for college and to families without the chance to own a home. I have seen the closed factories and the stalled assembly lines of Anderson, Indiana and South Gate, Calif., and I have seen too many, far too many, idle men and women desperate to work. I have seen too many, far too many, working families desperate to protect the value of their wages from the ravages of inflation.

"Yet I have also sensed a yearning for new hope among the people in every state where I have been. And I have felt it in their handshakes, I saw it in their faces, and I shall never forget the mothers who carried children to our rallies. I shall always remember the elderly who have lived in an America of high purpose and who believe that it can all happen again.

"And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

On President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Senate, July 1, 1987

''Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”

On the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, New York City, May 23, 1994

“She was a blessing to us and to the nation…and a lesson to the world on how to do things right, how to be a mother, how to appreciate history, how to be courageous. No one else looked like her, spoke like her, wrote like her, or was so original in the way she did things. No one we knew ever had a better sense of self. ... No one ever gave more meaning to the title of first lady."

On the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., July 23, 1999

"We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years.

"We who have loved him from the day he was born, and watched the remarkable man he became, now bid him farewell."

Endorsing Sen. Barack Obama, American University in Washington, D.C., Jan. 28, 2008

"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a New Frontier.

"He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed 'someone with greater experience' ? and added: 'May I urge you to be patient.' And John Kennedy replied: ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do… It is time for a new generation of leadership.' So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid 'the fierce urgency of now.'”

At the Democratic National Convention, Denver, Colo., Aug. 25, 2008

“We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn't say, ‘It's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try.’

“There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination…not merely victory for our party but renewal for our nation.

“And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

-Rena Silverman