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.
Certainly the prolonged education indispensable to the progress of society is not natural to mankind.
Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.
There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all.
I read comics and I did science, and never really put them together until I accidentally found myself in the middle of one.
Instructors should not only be skilful in those sciences which they teach, but have skill in the method of teaching, and patience in the practice.
...she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
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