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.
To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be.
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
If we want to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, it starts with a fair wage, adequate working conditions, and the resources and support to succeed. Remember: teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions.
To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel, really.
Girls are going to school again in Swat Valley. And that is great.
My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.
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