# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/142 "2014-01-25T20:56:18Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > “When you hear sweet syncopation > And the music softly moans > T’ain’t no sin to take off your skin > And dance around in your bones” > > Tom Waits Note that Tom Waits didn’t write that. It’s an old [novelty song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlg46kIGm_Q) recorded by a number of different artists in the '20s and '30s. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/143 "2014-01-26T00:39:05Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Note that Tom Waits didn’t write that. It’s an old [novelty song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlg46kIGm_Q) recorded by a number of different artists in the '20s and '30s. The lyricist was Edgar Leslie, who wrote it with Walter Donaldson in 1929. Leslie also wrote the lyrics for _Foe Me and My Gal_, _Kansas City Kitty_ and _Me and the Man in the Moon_. ---
**Author:** ![Traude37](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Traude37](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Traude37)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/144 "2014-01-26T02:46:40Z")
Sorry I could not finish my message. You are right with your perception of Lincolns Inaugural address, being melodious, rhythmic and meaningful. There is a similar quote from J.F. Kennedy that addresses our time and I find very meaningful, both in a public sense and in my personal life “So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common iinterests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all **inhabit this small planet.** \*\*We all \*\ ***breathe the same air.** We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” ― John F. Kennedy ---
**Author:** ![Traude37](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Traude37](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Traude37)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/145 "2014-01-26T03:15:25Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > You left a bit off: In other words" it was life" ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/146 "2014-01-26T04:28:51Z")
I’d like to nominate two: One, from [Dead Poets Society](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt), quoting Walt Whitman: “That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.” The second, from Ben Folds…but first, context: Being said to an ex-lover, concerning the current one: “I want to be for her what I could never be for you.” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/147 "2014-01-26T13:18:20Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Note that Tom Waits didn’t write that. It’s an old [novelty song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlg46kIGm_Q) recorded by a number of different artists in the '20s and '30s. > [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > The lyricist was Edgar Leslie, who wrote it with Walter Donaldson in 1929. Leslie also wrote the lyrics for _Foe Me and My Gal_, _Kansas City Kitty_ and _Me and the Man in the Moon_. Great sentence, nonetheless. 🆒 I knew Tom wasn’t the author, but made great use of it. The sentence paired well with King’s use of Siodmak’s sentence, though. ---
**Author:** ![Strangeland64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/48db29/32.png) [@Strangeland64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strangeland64)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/148 "2014-01-26T13:34:07Z")
From the book and movie “Cloud Atlas” … " Our lives are not our own, We are bound to others past and present, and be each crime and every kindness we birth our future." I hope I remembered that all right… anyway to me it’s a beautiful idea…and sentence 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PeacePlease](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/71c47a/32.png) [@PeacePlease](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeacePlease)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/149 "2014-01-26T14:29:58Z")
> [@Traude37](#): > > There is a similar quote from J.F. Kennedy that addresses our time and I find very meaningful, both in a public sense and in my personal life > > “So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all **inhabit this small planet.** \*\*We all \*\ ***breathe the same air.** We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” ― John F. Kennedy This is my favorite…so far! ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/150 "2014-01-26T17:49:36Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > I’d like to nominate two: > > One, from [Dead Poets Society](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt), quoting Walt Whitman: > > “That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.” Now being used to sell iPad Airs. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/151 "2014-01-26T19:00:48Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > What happens now? I’ll tell you what happens now. Your scumbag brother-in-law is finished. Done. You understand? I will _own_ him, when this is over. Every cent he earns, every cent his wife earns, is mine. Every place he goes, anywhere he turns, I’m gonna be there, grabbing my share. He’ll be scrubbing toilets in Tijuana for pennies, and I’ll be standing over him, taking my cut. He’ll see me when he wakes up in the morning, and when he crawls to sleep in whatever rat hole is left for him after I shred his house down. I will haunt his crusty ass forever, until the day he sticks a gun up his mouth and pulls the trigger, just to get me out of his head. That’s what happens next. I like this. Can you tell us the source please? ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/152 "2014-01-26T19:41:51Z")
It’s from arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest television dramas of all time. Without spoiling too much (in case you haven’t seen it), the bald guy’s BIL is a DEA agent who has just brutally rearranged the protagonist’s face. [Breaking Bad S03E07 - Jesse’s Speech](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKeL3Mu5AKo) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/153 "2014-01-26T19:51:54Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > It’s from arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest television dramas of all time. Without spoiling too much (in case you haven’t seen it), the bald guy’s BIL is a DEA agent who has just brutally rearranged the protagonist’s face. > > [Breaking Bad S03E07 - Jesse’s Speech](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKeL3Mu5AKo) Jesus! Aaron Paul reminds me so much of Henry Fonda in _Grapes of Wrath_ and I can’t help wondering how much of that was an homage. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/154 "2014-01-26T19:55:49Z")
Which scene? I’m wracking (racking?) my brain but it’s just not coming to me. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen GOW. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/155 "2014-01-26T20:36:31Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Now being used to sell iPad Airs. Yeah…I had the TV on in the background, and saw that commercial. It’s what made me think of it. Well, that, and my niece used that monologue as an audition for her drama club in high school a few weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/156 "2014-01-26T20:55:50Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Which scene? I’m wracking (racking?) my brain but it’s just not coming to me. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen GOW. [This one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2JR3FmvVAw) but only in terms of the manner of delivery and the scar on the face for comparison. The tone is at the opposite end of compassion and brotherly love from Jesse’s. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/157 "2014-01-27T02:57:30Z")
“They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” - Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928 I love the use of “other nations” in reference to non-human animals. ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/158 "2014-03-26T19:31:38Z")
No James Joyce yet? Herewith, my favourite, the last sentence of The Dead, His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/159 "2014-03-26T22:14:14Z")
> [@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.” Yep, I was coming to quote this part: But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/160 "2014-03-26T22:17:05Z")
“Don’t believe the hype.” ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/161 "2014-03-27T21:54:23Z")
The opening narration to an episode of the 1949 radio series, _The Green Lama_: “It is truly written that a man’s best friend is his dog – but for Juan Martinez, the little white chihuahua carried the seeds of death!” I want that on a T-shirt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=9)