Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.
Interpretation
Learning is essential for personal freedom and self-reliance.
In this quote, Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes that the ability to learn freely is crucial for individuals to develop the independence necessary for true freedom. He suggests that when people have the opportunity and freedom to educate themselves, they become more self-sufficient and capable of navigating their own lives without undue reliance on others.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education in a democratic society.
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.
Knowledge without understanding is useless.
To learn a belief without the belief is to sing a song without the tune.
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.
It's when children are 15, 16 or 17 that they decide whether they want to be a doctor, an engineer, a politician or go to the Mars or moon. That is the time they start having a dream, and that's the time you can work on them. You can help them shape their dreams.
My basic idea is that programming is the most powerful medium of developing the sophisticated and rigorous thinking needed for mathematics, for grammar, for physics, for statistics, for all the "hard" subjects.... In short, I believe more than ever that programming should be a key part of the intellectual development of people growing up.
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