[the Library Of Congress] Is A Multimedia

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.

Our American Past Always Speaks To Us With Two Voices: The Voice Of The Past, And The Voice Of The Present. We Are Always Asking Two Quite Different Questions. Historians Reading The Words Of John Winthrop Usually Ask, What Did They Mean To Him? Citizens Ask, What Do They Mean To Us? Historians Are Trained To Seek The Original Meaning; All Of Us Want To Know The Present Meaning.

The Modern American Tourist Now Fills His Experience With Pseudo-events. He Has Come To Expect Both More Strangeness And More Familiarity Than The World Naturally Offers. He Has Come To Believe That He Can Have A Lifetime Of Adventure In Two Weeks And All The Thrills Of Risking His Life Without Any Real Risk At All.

No Agnostic Ever Burned Anyone At The Stake Or Tortured A Pagan, A Heretic, Or An Unbeliever.

Some Are Born Great, Some Achieve Greatness, And Some Hire Public Relations Officers.