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.
Interpretation
Art thrives in an environment of individuality and freedom, while conformity stifles creativity.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's quote emphasizes the crucial relationship between individuality and artistic expression. He argues that when a society becomes rigid and adheres to stereotypes, art suffers because it requires personal expression and freedom to flourish. To support the arts, society must foster an atmosphere that values unique perspectives and creative freedom, as doing so allows both art and artists to thrive.
In practice
In a speech advocating for creative education, one might quote Roosevelt to highlight the importance of individuality.
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.
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.
Films and hotels have many aspects that are the same. For example, there is always a big vision, an idea.
If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.
Because each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith's Minamata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each o these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning.
The artist's role isn't to tell people how to feel, but reflect.
We used the Western style to express our own themes and stories. But don't forget that our heritage includes The Thousand and One Nights.
I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
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