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Nov 17, 2025
Join Walter Isaacson — the bestselling biographer of everyone from tech giants like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to geniuses like Ben Franklin — for a conversation on the origins of the most revolutionary line in the Declaration of Independence, as told in his new book The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.
It’s the sentence that defines who we are as Americans: “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.” Ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, Isaacson takes readers on a fascinating deep dive into the creation of one of our nation’s most definitive pieces of language. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, this line lays the foundation for the American Dream and defines the common ground we share as a nation —it continues to shape our politics today. And the tangled story of how it was written has much to teach us about who we might have been, who we are, and who we could be as a nation.
In a conversation unpacking the genius of this sentence word by word, hear Isaacson discuss the radical concepts behind the American Revolution, the enduring promise of America, and how it might help restore our appreciation for our common values.
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