<em>Interesting question. Here are the revised sentences, complete with commas (when they are needed).</em>
<em />
<em>After I finished the Chicago Marathon, my legs were tired.</em>
<em>Muhammed Ali was the greatest athlete ever.</em>
<em>My mom told me to clean my room, wash the dishes, and take out the garbage.</em>
<em>I want to listen to my iPod in class, but my teacher won't let me.</em>
<em>If I had the chance, I would change our mascot to a gorilla.</em>
<em>No, I don't want to go to Taco Bell for lunch.</em>
<em>The fireworks were fun to watch.</em>
<em>Marcus Brutus, who was tricked by Cassius, was the last conspirator to stab Caesar.</em>
<em>Antony, thinking the conspirators would kill him, fled after he saw Caesar's dead body.</em>
Okay I'll give you the excerpts I think you refer to (lines in brackets are options):
<span><span>1. Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered the room, "we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice! Only think of that, my dear; <span>(he actually danced with her twice! and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her!</span>)
</span><span>2. "His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. <span>(One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud.")</span>
<span>("That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."</span>)
</span><span>3. "Well,"
said Charlotte, "I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were
married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of
happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. <span>(Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other
or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in
the least.)</span> -- (<span>They
always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their
share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the
defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.<span>")
</span></span></span></span>
I think the answers are all the options of excerpts 1. & 2.
Please discuss in comments
The Most Remembered and Most Often Quoted Statement
<em>The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. </em>I think that every American is well aware of the Gettysburg Address. They may not remember much about anything anyone else said, but we all remember the contents of Lincoln's remarks. It is taught in almost every school and at every grade level (nearly). It is as unAmerican to claim that no one will remember it as it is to claim that we do not have a democracy anywhere on earth. Not substantiated. At least in Lincoln's case.
<em>that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.</em> This is the hardest one to make a comment about. It didn't look that way when in 1870 the 15th Amendment was passed. It sounded like slaves and others (Native Americans for one) were granted immediate freedom with the right to vote, but the states had ways of fighting back. It was not until the mid 1960s that this opinion began to be just words on a paper. I'd it was substantiated, but it took generations before you could say it really was so.
<em>That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. </em>It remains to be seen whether this one is true or not. Great challenges like ahead. I don't think you could say either way.
