# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/62 "2014-01-16T00:47:52Z")
> [@epolo](#): > > Two pages and no St. Crispin’s Day? > > “This story shall the good man teach his son; > And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, > From this day to the ending of the world, > But we in it shall be remembered- > We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; > For he to-day that sheds his blood with me > Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, > This day shall gentle his condition; > And gentlemen in England now-a-bed > Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, > And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks > That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” Not only is this one of the most effective sentences to read (and I didn’t know it was all one sentence until just now) it is one of the most powerful and moving movie speeches ever done in Kenneth Branagh’s [Henry V](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM) ---
**Author:** ![BuzzSaw101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a3d4f5/32.png) [@BuzzSaw101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuzzSaw101)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/63 "2014-01-16T01:09:00Z")
“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.” “On the Road” Jack Kerouac ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/64 "2014-01-16T01:14:24Z")
She purchased pain with all that joy could give, And died of nothing but a rage to live. Alexander Pope, from Moral Essays ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/65 "2014-01-16T01:46:05Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, > Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; > But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, > And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!’ > > In fact, I’d take even just the first two lines of it if you want to count that as a sentence. It’s amazing. Although I know it’s not a sentence, ‘The Raven’ has to be one of the most powerful and tragic pieces of literature ever made. The way the raven’s message, though it’s the same word, changes throughout the poem . . . Mix that with the rhythmic, almost musical quality of it, and the fact that Poe’s beloved wife was in the next room, dying, as he wrote, and it’s literally one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. I seriously shiver every time I read it. I’d have to nominate either this stanza: But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered - Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before - On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.' Then the bird said, `Nevermore.’ Or the last two lines: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore! ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/66 "2014-01-16T02:05:02Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/67 "2014-01-16T02:19:06Z")
“The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change” - Peter Gabriel (Firth of Fifth) ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/68 "2014-01-16T02:55:05Z")
This brief bit of description from Bryce Courtenay’s _The Power of One_: “The indigo night was pricked with sharp cold stars.” ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/69 "2014-01-16T08:27:19Z")
_Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_ by Annie Dillard. She almost did it. She wrote “The rain pocked the water.” I think “the” weakens it. Rain pocked the water. It invokes so many images in my mind. Fat, heavy drops hitting a deserted lake. Warm droplets falling into a swimming pool while the devil beats his wife. (Rain while the sun is shining.) Laying bruised on a sidewalk at 3am and noticing with a swollen eye the clean rain mixing with sludge in the gutter. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/70 "2014-01-16T13:12:57Z")
“The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.” – Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/71 "2014-01-16T15:12:01Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_ by Annie Dillard. She almost did it. She wrote “The rain pocked the water.” I think “the” weakens it. > > Rain pocked the water. It invokes so many images in my mind. Fat, heavy drops hitting a deserted lake. Warm droplets falling into a swimming pool while the devil beats his wife. (Rain while the sun is shining.) Laying bruised on a sidewalk at 3am and noticing with a swollen eye the clean rain mixing with sludge in the gutter. You should be writing haiku. Better yet, reading the classics like Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Here’s one your words evoked, from [WRITING THROUGH THE SEASONS](http://hokku.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/rain-beats-on-rain/): > [@](#): > > Leaves fall > And pile up; > Rain beats on rain. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/72 "2014-01-16T16:07:29Z")
From Mark Twain’s **The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn** : “All right then, I’ll _go_ to Hell!” (Context is everything here. Huck sincerely believes that unless he betrays his friend Jim, who is fleeing slavery, that he (Huck) will be eternally damned.) ---
**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 16, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/73 "2014-01-16T16:10:24Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > From Mark Twain’s **The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn** : > > “All right then, I’ll _go_ to Hell!” > > (Context is everything here. Huck sincerely believes that unless he betrays his friend Jim, who is fleeing slavery, that he (Huck) will be eternally damned.) Or maybe he has a moment of epiphany and realizes that everything he’s been brought up to believe is pure BS. That’s the way I’ve always interpreted it. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/74 "2014-01-16T17:20:38Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Or maybe he has a moment of epiphany and realizes that everything he’s been brought up to believe is pure BS. That’s the way I’ve always interpreted it. Don’t think so. He believes he’s going to hell and he does not care because his friend is more important. One of my favorite lines too. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/75 "2014-01-16T19:49:01Z")
The first sentence that came to my mind actually didn’t: I only recall my reaction to the sentence. It was from Tom Robbins “Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates” I remember after reading it having to put the book down just to chew on everything it said and everything it inferred, while wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. If I think about it when I get home I’ll try to find it (good luck!) The second sentence that came to my mind is… “Gerald began–but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them “permanently” meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash–to pee.” This is still my favourite ever Bulwar-Lytton, even long before I knew it was penned by our own **Boyo Jim** ---
**Author:** ![Hoops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoops/32/6408_2.png) [@Hoops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoops)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/76 "2014-01-17T08:19:25Z")
“O MOST NOBLE FLOOR, exalted above all other pavements, nay even above the ceilings and rooves of common buildings, you honor me by suffering my lips to touch you,” said Moseh de la Cruz–in a queerly muffled voice, as he was not kidding about the lips. Neal Stephenson, _The Confusion_ ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/77 "2014-01-17T08:54:05Z")
The last sentence especially: “But when we have finally regained the the Silmarills, then we and we alone shall be the lords of the unsullied light, and the master of all the bliss and beauty of Arda. No other race shall oust us!” ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/78 "2014-01-17T09:37:29Z")
Early on in _The Illustrated Man_ Ray Bradbury conjures up this: “He looked as if he had dropped and been crushed between the steel rollers of a print press, and come out like an incredible rotogravure. He was clothed in a garment of trolls and scarlet dinosaurs.” If he’d used a comma instead of a period it would be one of my favorite single sentences. However he ends with this: “It showed a crowd of freaks bending over a dying fat man on a dark and lonely road, looking at a tattoo on his back which illustrated a crowd of freaks bending over a dying fat man on a . . .” ---
**Author:** ![Whitney\_Harper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@Whitney\_Harper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whitney_Harper)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/79 "2014-01-17T10:33:30Z")
Take one day at a time. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2014, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/80 "2014-01-18T06:41:49Z")
After several hours of passion: “There’s nothing wrong with you that isn’t correctable.” ---
**Author:** ![Boogly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Boogly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boogly)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2014, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/81 "2014-01-18T08:05:10Z")
[Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) photo caption: I want to wear you like a wriggling, screaming flesh condom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=5)