# Paul Harvey Email Riddle
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 30, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201 "2003-04-30T18:47:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/1 "2003-04-30T18:47:24Z")
So I’ve gotten this forwarded email that is always described as “This neat little thing from Paul Harvey” and it’s pretty much just a list of moral platitudes and warm fuzzy crap that may or may not have come from the worlds oldest radio host, but at the end there is this riddle, which after the 10 or 15 times I’ve gotten this email before I’ve never been able to figure it out. So, who knows this one?
\>Paul Harvey RIDDLE:
\>
\>When asked this riddle, 80% of kindergarten kids got the answer, compared
\>to 17% of StanfordUniversity seniors.
\>
\>What is greater than God, More evil than the devil, The poor have it, The
\>rich need it, And if you eat it, you’ll die?
I have honestly no idea.😕
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/2 "2003-04-30T18:50:46Z")
Nothing
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### Author:  [@absimia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/absimia)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/3 "2003-04-30T18:52:29Z")
Nothing. Nothing is greater than God. Nothing is more evil than the devil. The poor have nothing. The Rich need for nothing. If you eat Nothing you die.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/4 "2003-04-30T18:53:07Z")
Nothing
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### Author:  [@absimia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/absimia)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/5 "2003-04-30T18:54:21Z")
Darn you Philster! Darn you straight to heck!! (in keeping with the Paul Harvey/antiPit ness of all of this) I was almost first!!?? arrrrgh. Hehe.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/6 "2003-04-30T19:42:49Z")
It might be useful to note that the statistics that are invariably listed at the start of this riddle are almost surely an urban legend. This percentages and the University of the college seniors change almost every time I hear it.
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### Author:  [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2003, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/7 "2003-05-01T13:22:45Z")
Isn’t it one of the ones Bilbo or Gollum tell in the Hobbit?
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/8 "2003-05-01T13:45:04Z")
I thought this was going to be the dreaded “words that end in -gry” question.
I was wrong.
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### Author:  [@caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caveman)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/9 "2003-05-01T14:00:47Z")
Good Day!
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/10 "2003-05-01T14:10:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by gex gex \*
> \*\*Isn’t it one of the ones Bilbo or Gollum tell in the Hobbit? \*\*
No.
Their answers are (Gollum asks first):
Mountain
Teeth
Wind
Sun on the daisies
Dark
Egg
Fish
Fish on a little table, man at table sitting on stool, the cat got the bones
Time
(A ring)
The nearest to the original is the penultimate one:
This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers,
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,
Slays king, riuns twon,
And beats high mountain down.
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-harvey-email-riddle/172201/11 "2003-05-01T14:16:59Z")
**ruins town** of course.