A Poem Should Be Palpable

What Happened At Hiroshima Was Not Only That A Scientific Breakthrough Had Occurred And That A Great Part Of The Population Of A City Had Been Burned To Death, But That The Problem Of The Relation Of The Triumphs Of Modern Science To The Human Purposes Of Man Had Been Explicitly Defined.

. . . 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.

Once You Permit Those Who Are Convinced Of Their Own Superior Rightness To Censor And Silence And Suppress Those Who Hold Contrary Opinions, Just At That Moment The Citadel Has Been Surrendered.

The American Mood, Perhaps Even The American Character, Has Changed. There Are Few Manifestations Any Longer Of The Old American Self-assurance Which So Irritated Dickens. Instead, There Is A Sense Of Frustration So Perceptible That Even Our Politicians Have Attempted To Exploit It.

Democracy Is Never A Thing Done. Democracy Is Always Something That A Nation Must Be Doing. What Is Necessary Now Is One Thing And One Thing Only, That Democracy Become Again Democracy In Action, Not Democracy Accomplished And Piled Up In Goods And Gold.