Pink Floyd's 'Hey You' has so many incredible lines I could pick just one, but my two favorites parts are:
1. When the song gets to a turn in the middle with these lines -
"But it was only fantasy.
The wall was too high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free.
And the worms ate into his brain."
2. The closing line -
"Together we stand, divided we fall."
It gets me every time I listen to the song, with the music and the echo in the end. In recent years it was used on a two occasions: Lost did a retake on the saying with "Live together, die alone" both as a quote and a an episode title. Last year the X-Men had a storyline titles 'Divided We Stand'. I know Pink Floyd weren't the first, but they made this line immortal.
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Motorhead's 'God Was Never on Your Side' sums almost everything I think about religion. See it as questioning God's existence (I don't believe in him) or just his actions, it's still one of the best criticism of blind faith and institutionalized religion.
"For there is no heaven in the sky,
Hell does not wait for our downfall!"
Or -
"See ten thousand ministries,
See the holy, righteous dogs,
They claim to heal,
But all they do is steal,
Abuse your faith,
Cheat and rob
If god is wise,
Why is he still,
When these false prophets,
Call him friend,
Why is he silent,
Is he blind?!
Are we abandoned in the end?"
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In Hebrew poetry there was Nathan Alterman with 'The Silver Platter'. My favorite lines:
"...And the land will grow still
Crimson skies dimming, misting
Slowly paling again
Over smoking frontiers
As the nation stands up
Torn at heart but existing
To receive its first wonder
In two thousand years"
And from Hayyim Nahman Bialik's 'On the Slaughter':
"And cursed be the man who says:
Avenge! No such revenge - revenge for
the blood of a little child - has yet been
devised by Satan. Let the blood pierce
through the abyss! Let the blood seep
down into the depths of darkness, and
eat away there, in the dark, and breach
all the rotting foundations of the earth."
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