# What is the greatest sentence you have read or heard ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598 "2014-01-12T18:47:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/1 "2014-01-12T18:47:35Z")
For me it’s the last sentence of Lincoln’s [First Inaugural](http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html). Let me quote the whole paragraph for context. > [@](#): > > I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. The sentence consists of two memorable phrases “mystic chords of memory” and “better angels of our nature” joined by a wonderful double-metaphor: the chords both stretch in space and “swell the chorus” with music. The sentence has a lovely balance and rhythm but is also rich with historical resonance; it was uttered at the moment of supreme crisis in US history. It’s prophetic but tinged with tragedy and irony: Lincoln’s own assassination and legend were crucial to the national reconciliation he predicted. There have been other important sentences in world history, and some just as beautiful, but I can’t think of anything that combines beauty and importance in quite the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Donegal\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Donegal\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donegal_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/2 "2014-01-12T20:10:37Z")
Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too! B.B. King ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/3 "2014-01-12T20:18:00Z")
Dunno if it’s the _best_, but I’ve always liked the opening line to Gibson’s _Neuromancer_: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/4 "2014-01-12T20:23:39Z")
Those who can write have a lot to learn from those bright enough not to. - Piet Hein ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/5 "2014-01-12T20:26:38Z")
“Shut up,” he explained. --Ring Lardner ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/6 "2014-01-12T20:39:07Z")
_“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t”_ -Douglas Adams ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/7 "2014-01-12T20:44:09Z")
Romans 8:38-39 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/8 "2014-01-12T20:49:11Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > “Shut up,” he explained. --Ring Lardner An actor referring to his agent: “Hello,” he lied. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/9 "2014-01-12T20:56:56Z")
“I hadn’t meant to kill the cat.” – Spider Robinson, _Telempath._ ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/10 "2014-01-12T21:44:46Z")
For sale: Baby shoes, never worn. – Attributed to Ernest Hemingway ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/11 "2014-01-12T22:06:30Z")
“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.” – Bertrand Russell ---
**Author:** ![Boogly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Boogly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boogly)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/12 "2014-01-12T22:37:13Z")
I want to wear you like a wriggling, screaming flesh condom. [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) photo caption. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/13 "2014-01-12T22:53:38Z")
It’s tough to match the standard Lincoln set. Another great example is the end of his Second Inaugural Address, in which he goes on and on, yet never lapses from absolute clarity: > [@](#): > > With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. —4 March 1865 The sheer humanity of this utterance never fails to impress me. I’m also fond of this sentence often attributed to Dorothy Parker, both for its sentiment and for its admirable construction: > [@](#): > > The cure for boredom is curiosity; there is no cure for curiosity. eta: Oops, the second example meets the thread’s challenge only by means of a semicolon. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/14 "2014-01-12T23:22:38Z")
I have always adored this sentence from Fritz Leiber’s “The Man Who Never Grew Young.” “I have seen King Cheops men take down the Great Pyramid and return the stones to the hills.” ---
**Author:** ![ASGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@ASGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/15 "2014-01-14T03:30:41Z")
You’ll have to be a computer font wonk to get this. I worked for a typesetting equipment manufacturer with a full-on font department. The head of the department, John Matt (now deceased) had this sign over his desk: Trip the italic flag and oblique off. I’ve never forgotten it. R.I.P. John. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/16 "2014-01-14T22:54:15Z")
Rodney King - “… we’re all stuck here for a while.” ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/17 "2014-01-14T23:51:24Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Rodney King - “… we’re all stuck here for a while.” I teared up, back in 1992 during the riots, when Rodney King said “can we all get along?” Millions were listening to hear what he had to say. He had every reason to call for vengeance and violence. But he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/18 "2014-01-15T00:03:07Z")
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever.” —_MK Ghandi_ ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/19 "2014-01-15T00:28:15Z")
“To love another person is to touch the face of God.” – _Les Miserables_🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/20 "2014-01-15T00:32:05Z")
“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.” _Uncle Vanya,_ Anton Chekhov [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=2)