If our knowledge is, as I believe, only an island in an infinite sea of ignorance, how can we in our short lifetime find satisfaction in exploring our little island? How can we persuade ourselves to be exhilarated by our meager knowledge and yet not be discouraged by the ocean vistas?

[The Library of Congress] is a multimedia encyclopedia. These are the tentacles of a nation.

We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.

An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.

The traveler used to go about the world to encounter the natives. A function of travel agencies now is to prevent this encounter.

A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.