Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or passage that all of us should commit to heart. This week, we hear from Walter Isaacson, author of the new book The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, who recently sat down for a conversation with The Free Press’s Rafaela Siewert. As we approach Thanksgiving, Isaacson reflects on the fragile beginnings of our country’s core principles—and why that fragility makes them ever more worthy of gratitude.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, one sentence became our common creed and mission statement, binding a diverse group of pilgrims and immigrants into one nation.
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.
In this era of poisonous and sometimes violent political polarization, when even discussions of our history threaten to divide us, we must find a way to put differences aside and celebrate, with gratitude, who we are. One way to achieve this would be by appreciating anew that sentence, the second of our Declaration of Independence, which may be the greatest ever written by human hand.
