# The single greatest thing written by anyone, ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896 "2008-03-03T02:06:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/1 "2008-03-03T02:06:05Z")
In [this thread on the Great Gatsby](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9535548&postcount=12), **ForumBot** writes > [@](#): > > Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers of all time. Here’s the single greatest thing I have ever read written by anyone ever. Yes, I mean that. > > “…one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” While I agree with the sentiment, FB identifies the wrong Gatsby quote as greatest thing ever. That is clearly this (from memory, so blame any infelicities on me): > [@](#): > > Perhaps he didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamililar sky and shivered as he saw what a grotesque thing a rose is, and how raw the sunlight was on the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about. Now that is the greatest thing ever written…or so it seems to me. Anybody want to name something else? Try to keep it to under a paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/2 "2008-03-03T02:54:08Z")
I keep coming across passages that make me think similar absolutes whenever I read another Halldor Laxness book. I don’t have any with me right now, but I’ll try to find some passages to quote here. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/3 "2008-03-03T03:31:18Z")
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome Decree Where Alph the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/4 "2008-03-03T03:45:41Z")
> [@Thomas Jefferson](#): > > We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. No question. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/5 "2008-03-03T04:09:54Z")
[QUOTE=Thomas Jefferson] We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. [/QUOTE] I would find that writing a little more powerful if the man that wrote it was not a total fucking hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/6 "2008-03-03T04:11:18Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] I would find that writing a little more powerful if the man that wrote it was not a total fucking hypocrite. [/QUOTE] _shrug_ I didn’t know him personally, so the words are disconnected from the man, for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Key_Lime_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/7 "2008-03-03T04:21:29Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] I would find that writing a little more powerful if the man that wrote it was not a total fucking hypocrite. [/QUOTE] Don’t hijack this great idea for a thread. We’ve done the Jefferson thing a thousand times. And you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/8 "2008-03-03T04:42:29Z")
[The Street of Crocodiles](http://www.amazon.com/Street-Crocodiles-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140186255) On Amazon, none of the reviews are below 4 stars… and that’s only one of them! The rest are all 5 stars. There’s a reason. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/9 "2008-03-03T04:54:14Z")
Chapters 38-41 of the Book of Job - The King James Version. > [@Chapter 41](#): > > 1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? > > 2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? > > 3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? > > 4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? > > 5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? > > 6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? > > 7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears? > > 8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. > > 9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? > > 10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? > > 11 Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. > > 12 I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion. > > 13 Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle? > > 14 Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. > > 15 His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. > > 16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. > > 17 They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. > > 18 By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. > > 19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. > > 20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. > > 21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. > > 22 In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him. > > 23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved. > > 24 His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. > > 25 When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves. > > 26 The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. > > 27 He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. > > 28 The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble. > > 29 Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. > > 30 Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire. > > 31 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. > > 32 He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. > > 33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. > > 34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/10 "2008-03-03T05:26:14Z")
[QUOTE=Garfield226] > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson > We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. No question. [/QUOTE] I was totally going to say that but then I thought we were talking about things from books. This is the most eloquent expression of an opinion on government ever formed. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/11 "2008-03-03T05:48:42Z")
IMHO, the greatest thing written by anyone, ever [came](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6402841&postcount=184) [in](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6402934&postcount=185) [four](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6402967&postcount=186) [parts.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6402990&postcount=187) ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/12 "2008-03-03T05:53:23Z")
This. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e36b37/32.png) [@Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_A_Tame_Lion)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/13 "2008-03-03T05:57:11Z")
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, including: > [@](#): > > It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Simply extraordinary. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/14 "2008-03-03T07:46:40Z")
The political speeches etc quoted above may be fine thoughts but I don’t know that I’d call them particularly well written. Jefferson’s in particular seems quite turgid to me. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/15 "2008-03-03T07:59:00Z")
Compared to other political writings of the time, The Declaration of Independence flows like butter. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/16 "2008-03-03T08:03:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not so much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad. A description of a hangover, from _Lucky Jim_, by Kingsley Amis. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/17 "2008-03-03T08:53:44Z")
“This is John Galt speaking…” Just kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/18 "2008-03-03T09:51:27Z")
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (from memory, so probably inaccurate in parts) “If only there were evil men somewhere, doing evil things, and it were only necessary to destroy them. But the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man, and who can destroy his own heart?” ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/19 "2008-03-03T10:06:18Z")
Also from Gatsby: One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb into it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/20 "2008-03-03T10:08:49Z")
The explanation of Catch-22, from the novel. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896.md?page=2)