. . . what humanity most desperately needs is not the creation of new worlds but the recreation in terms of human comprehension of the world we have -- and it is for this reason that arts go on for generation to generation in spite of the fact that Phidias has already carved and Homer has already sung. The creation, we are informed, was accomplished in seven days with Sunday off, but the recreation will never be accomplished because it is always accomplished anew for each generation of living men.
Archibald MacLeishWhat is more important in a library than anything else-than everything else-is the fact that it exists.
Archibald MacLeishDemocracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing.
Archibald MacLeishWhat once was cuddled must learn to kiss The cold wonn's mouth. That's all the mystery.
Archibald MacLeishOur reliance in this country is on the inquiring, individual human mind. Our strength is founded there; our resilience, our ability to face an ever-changing future and to master it. We are not frozen into the backward-facing impotence of those societies, fixed in the rigidness of an official dogma, to which the future is the mirror of the past. We are free to make the future for ourselves.
Archibald MacLeish