Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.
Interpretation
Books are enduring resources that preserve knowledge and ideas, making them powerful tools for freedom.
In this quote, Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes the immortality of books and their ability to carry memories and ideas across time. Despite the physical destruction that can be wrought upon the world, books serve as vessels of knowledge and as instruments for liberation; they cannot be extinguished and remain vital in the struggle for freedom and enlightenment. He urges individuals to weaponize knowledge derived from books in the quest for human rights and justice.
In practice
This quote would be perfect to use during a book club discussion about the importance of literature.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is being educated.
In Kenya, I met wonderful girls; girls who wanted to help their communities. I was with them in their school, listening to their dreams. They still have hope. They want to be doctor and teachers and engineers.
A book is like a single tree in a forest, in that it exists in conjunction with and because of a great many others around it.
Everyone engaged in research must have had the experience of working with feverish and prolonged intensity to write a paper which no one else will read or to solve a problem which no one else thinks important and which will bring no conceivable reward - which may only confirm a general opinion that the researcher is wasting his time on irrelevancies.
A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty.
Books are alive, you see. They're not dead, they're alive.
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