1943

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith the

It's lucky I was there. Then again, who am I kidding? I'm in most places at least once, and in 1943, I was just about everywhere.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare__orries or no lorries__nd saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest__r your host__f he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.

...Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don__ in don__ shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the peopleare right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths,the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn__ been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It__ the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee.