# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/101 "2008-03-05T22:20:12Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] There is more to it, of course, but those two sentences have rung in my head for years. [/QUOTE] That is indeed a great poem. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/102 "2008-03-05T22:45:10Z")
The ending to the Akallabeth from Tolkein’s Silmarillion: > [@](#): > > Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallone, if they would. Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a Straight road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen, which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world. And tales and rumours arose along the shores of the sea, concerning mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some fate, or grace or favour of the Valar, had entered in upon the Straight Way and seen the face of the world sink below them, and so had come to the lamplit quays of Avallone, or verily to the last beaches on the margin of Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before they died. It reminds me of how writing and poetry _should be_: building up and referencing everything in the text before it as well as a perfect sense of rhythm even in prose. In second place, I’d vote for Churchill’s “Never Surrender” speech or Kings “I have a Dream” speech. It says something about my love of poetry that I think these three choices are the most poetic things ever created even though they are not technically poetry. ETA: which is not to say that those lines from Ozymadias are not great. But it does have just as much impact out of context as reading the entire poem. ---
**Author:** ![Forrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5a626/32.png) [@Forrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Forrester)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/103 "2008-03-05T22:52:54Z")
I was going to suggest the 23rd psalm as well, and I’m an atheist . . . looks like that ground’s been covered :). So I’m left with We would rather be ruined than changed, We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die. — W. H. Auden and this: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt and this: The apple of discord is now fairly in our midst, and if not nipped in the bud it will burst forth in a conflagration which will deluge society in an earthquake of bloody apprehension. – Nebraska newspaper editorial, circa 1870 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/104 "2008-03-05T22:57:26Z")
Another favorite, full of useful imagry, is Yeats - The Second Coming: > [@](#): > > Turning and turning in the widening gyre > The falcon cannot hear the falconer; > Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; > Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, > The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere > The ceremony of innocence is drowned; > The best lack all conviction, while the worst > Are full of passionate intensity. > Surely some revelation is at hand; > Surely the Second Coming is at hand. > The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out > When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi > Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert > A shape with lion body and the head of a man, > A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, > Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it > Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. > The darkness drops again; but now I know > That twenty centuries of stony sleep > were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, > And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, > Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/105 "2008-03-06T04:17:35Z")
Just a fragment, and it needs the context of the preceding story, but I’m fond of the last part of the last line of Clarke’s _The Nine Billion Names of God_ “. . . overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.” ---
**Author:** ![Quint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/76d3ee/32.png) [@Quint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quint)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/106 "2008-03-06T05:38:55Z")
I have to say both Shakespeare passages made the hair on my arms and neck stand straight up. Lots of other beauties here- Churchill’s speeches taken with their historical context are also very moving. My contribution is from Tennyson’s Ulysses- not the greatest poem ever by any means but the end passage gives me the chills: you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,– One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/107 "2008-03-06T05:57:28Z")
[QUOTE=Forrester] I was going to suggest the 23rd psalm as well, and I’m an atheist . . . looks like that ground’s been covered :). So I’m left with We would rather be ruined than changed, We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die. — W. H. Auden [/QUOTE] I’ve always loved the quote from “The Dead” mentioned on page one (and would have chosen it had I arrived earlier), but this is great, too. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/108 "2008-03-06T08:34:53Z")
Hunter Thompson-The Wave Speach. When Hunter was on…nobody wrote better. > [@](#): > > Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era - the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were here and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant . . . . > > History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think thatevery now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights - or very early mornings - when I left the Fillmore half - crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder’s jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn - off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll - gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. .There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. > > There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. > > So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high - water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/109 "2008-03-06T12:30:38Z")
This thread made me cry. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/110 "2008-03-06T15:19:33Z")
Suffering and tragedy and folly will not disappear in a purified world. They are a part of humanity. That is why, even in a world of suffering, there can also be joy and shining light. -Hayao Miyazaki ---
**Author:** ![greatshakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@greatshakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greatshakes)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/111 "2008-03-06T17:18:23Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] 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. [/QUOTE] Do you mean the whole poem, or just that stanza? For some reason, this week, these verses have been going through my mind: Weave a circle round him thrice, And Close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/112 "2008-03-06T17:28:52Z")
[QUOTE=greatshakes] Do you mean the whole poem, or just that stanza? For some reason, this week, these verses have been going through my mind: Weave a circle round him thrice, And Close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. [/QUOTE] Heh–I often sing the 2 preceding lines in MY head: > [@](#): > > And all should cry, Beware! Beware! > His flashing eyes, his floating hair! ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Jass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4da419/32.png) [@Hugh\_Jass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Jass)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/113 "2008-03-06T17:44:16Z")
Jack Kerouac, from On The Road: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” ---
**Author:** ![RancidYakButterTeaParty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/53a042/32.png) [@RancidYakButterTeaParty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RancidYakButterTeaParty)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/114 "2008-03-06T17:59:53Z")
Written by Eric Bachman of Crooked Fingers, this is an excerpt from the song “Sad Love”: "When you cut the cord to close the curtain on the sun And evening came to cover everything you left undone I took a walk out to greet an old familiar ghost To take a seat among the freaks and watch the red lights glow On the day you came I swear I felt so drunk Stumbling I tried to bring you down to where I’d sunk But throwing a spark you lit up the dark to heat the hateful glow And burned a bright resentful ring around our sad sad love Sad love is calling you What’s meant to be has fallen through Is running through your veins An evil kind of bloodless pain Is creeping through the cracks that swell To swallow you up into Hell To shatter all that you believed And let your lonesome heart be free So shut your angry eyes cause there ain’t nothing here to see It’s sad enough they called the bluff on all these lying dreams That creep through the night where even the slightest defect is exposed To leave us only half asleep so we can watch the curtain close" ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/115 "2008-03-06T18:46:10Z")
My favorite Henry V passage my not be the greatest moment in literature but it is some eloquent cold blooded shit to say to someone before a beat down. I keep waiting for my ‘Jules moment’ but I guess I’ll have to become a hitman first. And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down; And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn. But this lies all within the will of God, To whom I do appeal; and in whose name Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on, To venge me as I may and to put forth My rightful hand in a well-hallow’d cause. So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin His jest will savour but of shallow wit, When thousands weep more than did laugh at it. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/116 "2008-03-06T19:57:42Z")
Thanks for this thread, I’m loving it! I’d like to contribute the following; “Just because you’re naked, doesn’t mean you’re sexy. Just because you’re cynical, doesn’t mean you’re cool. You may tell the greatest lies, and wear a brilliant disguise, But you can’t escape the eyes of the ones who look right through you. In the end, what will prevail, is your passion not your tale, for love is the holy grail, even in cognito. So better listen to me sister, and pay close attention mister, It’s very good to play the game, amuse the gods, avoid the pain. But don’t trust fortune don’t trust fame, Your real self doesn’t know your name, And, in this, we’re all the same, We’re all incognito.” Tom Robbins, Incognito And another, “I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hopes always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” Robert Fulghum, The Storytellers Creed. “Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave. And, unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality – not as we expect it to be, but as it is – is to see that unless we live for each other, and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily. That there can be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.” Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/117 "2008-03-06T21:04:39Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] 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. [/QUOTE] For some reason my mind always conflates this … In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately dome Decree He crawled upon the railroad tracks The train he did not see. Oooey Kubla! ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/118 "2008-03-06T21:29:11Z")
One of Nietzsche’s letters to his sister always struck me as beautiful and powerful: > [@](#): > > …As for your principle that truth is always on the side of the more difficult, I admit this in part. However, it is difficult to believe that 2 times 2 is not 4; does that make it true? > > On the other hand, is it really so difficult simply to accept everything that one has been brought up on and that has gradually struck deep roots—what is considered truth in the circle of one’s relatives and of many good men, and what, moreover, really comforts and elevates men? Is that more difficult than to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experiencing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one’s feelings and even one’s conscience, proceeding often without any consolation, but ever with the eternal goal of the true, the beautiful, and the good? > > Is it decisive after all that we arrive at that view of God, world, and reconciliation which makes us feel most comfortable? Rather, is it not the result of his inquiries something wholly indifferent to the true inquirer? Do we after all seek rest, peace, and pleasure in our inquiries? No, only truth—even if it be the most abhorrent and ugly. > > Still one last question: if we had believed from childhood that all salvation issued from someone other than Jesus—say, from Mohammed—is it not certain that we should have experienced the same blessings? I point this out to you, dear Lisbeth, only to disprove the most common means of evidence relied upon by orthodox people who derive the infallibility of their belief from subjective, inner experience. Every true faith accomplishes what the person who has the faith hopes to find in it; but faith does not offer the least support for a proof of objective truth. > > Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/119 "2008-03-06T21:36:36Z")
[QUOTE=Sitnam] My favorite Henry V passage my not be the greatest moment in literature but it is some eloquent cold blooded shit to say to someone before a beat down. I keep waiting for my ‘Jules moment’ but I guess I’ll have to become a hitman first. And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; [/QUOTE] Woah, that must hurt. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896/120 "2008-03-06T22:06:09Z")
Reading this thread just now has been wonderful. I was going to mention one of the Gandalf quotes, or something from a favorite poem, but instead I’m offering this little bit of writing I saw in an exhibit once long ago and which has stuck in my mind ever since: “Something began me that had no beginning; something will end me that has no end.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-greatest-thing-written-by-anyone-ever/439896.md?page=7)