American Civilization, From Its Beginnings, Had Combined

I Have Observed That The World Has Suffered Far Less From Ignorance Than From Pretensions To Knowledge. It Is Not Skeptics Or Explorers But Fanatics And Ideologues Who Menace Decency And Progress. No Agnostic Ever Burned Anyone At The Stake Or Tortured A Pagan, A Heretic, Or An Unbeliever.

But Rather That We Should Lose Our Sense That Neither Can Become The Other, That The Traditional Novel Form Continues To Enlarge Our Experience In Those Very Areas Where The Wide-angle Lense And The Cinerama Screen Tend To Narrow It.

[the Library Of Congress] Is A Multimedia Encyclopedia. These Are The Tentacles Of A Nation.

While The Focus In The Landscape Of Old World Cities Was Commonly Government Structures, Churches, Or The Residences Of Rulers, The Landscape And The Skyline Of American Cities Have Boasted Their Hotels, Department Stores, Office Buildings, Apartments, And Skyscrapers. In This Grandeur, Americans Have Expressed Their Booster Pride, Their Hopes For Visitors And New Settlers, And Customers, For Thriving Commerce And Industry.

Probably No One Of Us Has The True Religion. But All Of Us Together - If We Are Allowed To Be Free - Are Discovering Ways Of Conversing About The Great Mysteries. The Pretense To Know All The Answers To The Deepest Mysteries Is, Of Course, The Grossest Fraud. And Any People Who Declare A Jihad, A Holy War On Unbelievers - Those Who Do Not Share Their Believers' Pretended Omniscience - Are Enemies Of Thinking Men And Woman And Of Civilization. I See Religion As Only A Way Of Asking Unanswerable Questions, Of Sharing The Joy Of A Community Of Quest, And Solacing One Another In Our Ignorance.