One Sentence, Big Stakes📜✨

What if America’s most famous idea came down to a few fiercely debated words?

In The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Walter Isaacson unpacks the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence—“We hold these truths…”—and shows how a small committee’s edits helped shape a nation’s biggest promise. You’ll see how Jefferson’s original phrasing evolved through collaboration (including Franklin’s swap of “sacred” for the razor-sharp “self-evident”), and why that change anchored rights in reason as much as belief. Isaacson then follows the sentence’s big claims—equality, unalienable rights, and the pursuit of happiness—through their inspiring ideals and their painful contradictions, especially around slavery and exclusion. As the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, the book argues these words still offer a practical roadmap for rebuilding common ground in a divided time. Read the summary and you’ll never hear that sentence the same way again.