John F. Kennedy Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain."

by:	John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th US President
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Categories:	Education, Learning, Liberty
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Reader comments about this quote:

I like it. -- Mike, Norwalk
Very true. -- E Archer, NYC
-- warren, olathe
true -- Anonymous
What are we going to do with two generations of high school dropouts ? -- Peggy, Livingston,NJ
A caveat here would be, what is taught and what is learned. There is as great a peril, or worse - if what is learned is anti-liberty. By way of example: if tyranny's legal positivism (as is averse to a constitutional extension of the laws of nature and of nature's God) is taught, learned and accepted as liberty, the statement looses all understanding and reality, while super emphasizing the second half of the statement. -- Mike, Norwalk
Two and a half stars actually. I fully agree with the first half of this quote. If those who enjoy liberty feel they do not need to know how to think for themselves, how to process all the information that each day brings to them, how to assess what it is they are learning - as to whether it serves to free them or enslave them, that liberty will always be at peril. However, the second half contradicts a more powerful quote that Kennedy also said to Latin American diplomats at the White House on 13 March 1962. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." If it was true that learning under dictators and other tyrants, of any description, resulted in learning being in vain, none of us would be free. That is why tyrannies, of any sort, seek to obstruct people from learning how to think. They focus instead on teaching what to think. This is what concerns me the most about recent protests on college campuses that seek to prevent people from hearing views the protestors might not agree with. -- Louis, Stuart

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