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About this quote

What does it mean?
Clarke balances adult freedom with the need to protect children from harmful ideas in education.
In plain terms
Adults should be free to believe what they want but children need protection from wrong ideas.
What can you take from it?
Protect children from harmful ideologies while respecting adult liberty.

Where it applies

  • school curricula
  • parenting debates
  • legal decisions

Putting it to work

  • advocate for science in schools
  • respect privacy

Questions to consider

  • Where should education stop and personal belief begin?
  • Who protects the young?

Another view

Defining what is harmful to children is often subjective and contested.

More from Arthur C. Clarke

  1. Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!

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  2. Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

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  3. I wanted to kill myself. I would have done it, too, if I had owned a gun. I was considering the gruesome alternatives - pills, slitting my wrists with a razor …

    Permalink to quote #17

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