I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of regularly revisiting foundational documents like the Constitution to understand their significance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt compares the Constitution of the United States to the Bible, suggesting that both documents contain essential principles that citizens should revisit frequently for guidance and understanding. By encouraging re-reading these texts, Roosevelt highlights the necessity of engaging with the foundational ideas of democracy and justice, asserting that such knowledge is vital for informed citizenship and civic duty.
In practice
A professor might use this quote in a lecture about the importance of constitutional literacy among students.
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.
Tuesday—we had school for the first time. Madame O’Malley had a moment of silence at the beginning of French class, a class that was always punctuated with long moments of silence, and then asked us how we were feeling. “Awful,” a girl said. “En français,” Madame O’Malley replied. “En français.
Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens, and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes.
Writing nonfiction has been my most serious education, and for all those years it kept me from even glancing in the direction of despair.
A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?
Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.
I have what passes for an education in this day and time, but I am not deceived by it.
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