1. Books are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature, help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of weariness into moments of delight, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.
2. There is an oriental story of two men: one was a king, who every night dreamt he was a beggar; the other was a beggar, who every night dreamt he was a prince and lived in a palace. I am not sure that the king had very much the best of it. Imagination is sometimes more vivid than reality. But, however this may be, when we read we may not only be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense.
3. Many of those who have had, as we say, all that this world can give, have yet told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Ascham, in The Schoolmaster, tells a touching story of his last visit to Lady Jane Grey. He found her sitting in an oriel window reading Platos beautiful account of the death of Socrates. Her father and mother were hunting in the park, the hounds were in full cry and their voices came in through the open window. He expressed his surprise that she had not joined them. But, said she, I wist that all their pleasure in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato.
4. Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. In a charming letter to a little girl, he says, Thank you for your very pretty letter, I am always glad to make my little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as to see that she likes books, for when she is as old as I am, she will find that they are better than all the tarts and cakes, toys and plays, and sights in the world. If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners, and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king; I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.
5. Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts, there is a wider prospect, says Jean Paul Richter, from Parnassus than from a throne. In one way they give us an even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature. All mirrors, says George Macdonald, The commonest room is a room in a poem when I look in the glass.
6. Precious and priceless are the blessings which the books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions.
7. Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spensers shapes of unearthly beauty flock to meet us, where Miltons angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of Paradise. Science, art, literature, philosophy,all that man has thought, all that man has done,the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations,all are garnered up for us in the world of books.
1. On behalf of all of your American guests, I wish to thank you for the incomparable hospitality for which the Chinese people are justly famous throughout the world. I particularly want to pay tribute, not only to those who prepared the magnificent dinner, but also to those who have provided the splendid music. Never have I heard American music played better in a foreign land.
2. Mr. Prime Minister, I wish to thank you for your very gracious and eloquent remarks. At this very moment, through the wonder of telecommunications, more people are seeing and hearing what we say than on any other such occasion in the whole history of the world. Yet what we say here will not be long remembered. What we do here can change the world.
3. As you said in your toast, the Chinese people are a great people, the American people are a great people. If our two peoples are enemies, the future of this world we share together is dark indeed. But if we can find common ground to work together, the chance for world peace is immeasurably increased.
4. In the spirit of frankness which I hope will characterize our talks this week, let us recognize at the outset these points: We have at times in the past been enemies. We have great differences today. What brings us together is that we have common interests which transcend those differences. As we discuss our differences, neither of us will compromise our principles. But while we cannot close the gulf between us, we can try to bridge it so that we may be able to talk across it.
5. So, let us, in these next five days, start a long march together, not in lockstep, but on different roads leading to the same goal, the goal of building a world structure of peace and justice in which all may stand together with equal dignity and in which each nation, large of small, has a right to determine its own form of government, free of outside interference or domination. The world watches. The world listens. The world waits to see what we will do. What is the world? In a personal sense, I think of my eldest daughter whose birthday is today. As I think of her, I think of all the children in the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, in the Americas, most of whom were born since the date of the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China.
6. What legacy shall we leave our children? Are they destined to die for the hatreds which have plagued the old world, or are they destined to live because we have the Vision to build a new world?
7. There is no reason for us to be enemies. Neither of us seeks the territory of the other; neither of us seeks domination over the other; neither of us seeks to stretch out our hands and rule the world.
8. Chairman Mao has written, So many deeds cry out to be done, and always urgently; Time presses. Seize the day, seize the hour! This is the hour. This is the day for our two peoples to rise to the heights of greatness which can build a new and a better world.
9. In that spirit, I ask all of you present to join me in raising your glasses to Chairman Mao, to Prime Minister Chou, and to the friendship of the Chinese and American people which can lead to friendship and peace for all people in the world.
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