I came across a little book last week.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
Measures about 7 inches by 5 inches by 1/2 inch thick. 67 pages. A small book.
Written by Walter Isaacson, former editor of TIME magazine, and something of an amateur historian. Also a biographer, writing about the lives of notable people like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Some of my favorite people, in fact.
Except maybe Elon.
This book came out in November last year. The timing was important, because Mr. Isaacson’s subject matter was the following sentence, which (as we all know, but often forget) kicks off the second paragraph of the 1776 Declaration of Independence:
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 —
It’s a pretty darn great sentence, I have to admit, even though I never finished college.
The importance of the timing? Mr. Isaacson and his publishers, Simon and Schuster, knew they would sell a lot of these little books during 2026, while the country was celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 2026.
Actually, the Declaration was signed mainly on August 2, but because there’s already a big celebration that happens on July 4th, we typically do the birthday thing on July 4th.
As we again did this year.
There are a lot of “Greatest” things in America. Too many to name, in fact. I’m thinking about the Grand Canyon, for instance. For a while, we had the tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building, but other countries eventually passed us up in that department. But we still have the Greatest Reflecting Pool.
According to Mr. Isaacson, America has has the unalienable right to claim the Greatest Sentence Ever Written, for the past 250 years.
There have been other great sentences, that — like the Empire State Building — were the Greatest Sentence for a period of time, but the authors of the Declaration of Independence passed them up. Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams as the primary authors of that sentence.
If you read the original document, the spelling of the Greatest Sentence is slightly different from what Mr. Isaacson quotes in his little book.
To wit:
We hold thefe Truths to be felf-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among thefe are life, liberty, and the purfuit of happinefs —
In fact, if Mr. Isaacson wanted to be true to spirit of the Founding Fathers, he would have titled his book:
The Greateft Fentence Ever Written
But either way, it’s a pretty darn great sentence.
Or, rather, it was great back in 1776, when “We” meant “white male owners of property.” These were the men who were created equal.
Women, Black slaves, Indians, and white male who didn’t own property, not so much. In fact, not at all.
From what I can gather, you not only had to be a white male who owned property, you also had to own a white powdered wig.
Unless you were Jefferson. That red hair counted for a lot.
When I looked at the original printed document (online, of course) it seemed to me that the Greatest Sentence does not really end with “the purfuit of happinefs —” because I don’t see any period after “happinefs” to conclude the sentence. Seems like the sentence actually continues:
” — That to fecure thefe rights, governments are inftituted among men…” and so on, for the rest of the second paragraph. But of course, I’m not the best-selling former editor of TIME magazine. So don’t take my word for it.
The equal rights possessed by the white male property owners came from “the Creator”, who wisely enough was not specifically named, considering the ongoing disputes among the various religion sects in 1776.
As I read Mr. Isaacson’s book — a bit late, because July 4th had happened a few days earlier — I was bothered by a nagging feeling that maybe this wasn’t the Greatest Sentence Ever Written.
The American government has been making a lot of claims, lately, about the Greatest This and the Greatest That, and it’s cast a shadow on the whole idea of Greatness.
In my humble option, these are some reasonable contenders for The Greatest Sentence Ever Written:
Opening and closing the gate of heaven, can you play the part of the female?
-Tao Te Ching
Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, daß der nicht würfelt.
— Albert Einstein
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
— ranked the Number One bible sentence by 288 voters on Ranker.com
(The sentence above from Albert Einstein translates roughly as “I, for one, am convinced that God does not play dice.” I tend to agree.)
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.