Literacy Quotes

Library science was the foundation of all sciences.

~ Robert A. Heinlein

Indeed, if these final decades of the millennium have taught us anything, it must be that oral tradition never was the ‘other’ we accused it of being; it never was the primitive, preliminary technology of communication we thought it had to be. Rather, if the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species, as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality. The miracle of the flat inscribable surface and Gutenberg’s genius aside, even the electronic revolution cannot challenge the long-term preeminence of the oral tradition. (Introduction by John Foley)

~ E. Anne Mackay

We write to give strength to the soul of the spirit.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.

~ Eric Hoffer

Parents often ask - how do I get my child interested in books and reading? One tried and true way that my late husband and I used was paying them to read. For each book that my sons read, we paid them $1. They soon developed a love for reading and forgot all about the money. Amazing but true!

~ Soraya Diase Coffelt

Most of the world's problems will be solved if literacy prevailed.

~ Mahrukh

When writing the constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John Adams wrote:I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

~ John Adams

It’s our(As The Stars of the Sky Foundation, Inc.) passion and joy to read to children and improve literacy, as well as teach others about charity and the impact they can have in a child’s life.

~ Soraya Diase Coffelt

A hundred years ago, an average teenager knew countless authors, and, a sex position or two. Today, an average teenager knows countless sex positions, and, an author or two.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

No skill is more crucial to the future of a child than literacy.

~ Los Angeles Times

Shockingly, too many of our children don't read to grade level. Studies show that if a child does not read to grade level by third grade, that child is likely to drop out of school. I believe the love of reading begins at home. We should do all we can to make sure that our children and grandchildren stay in school and graduate. Reading to grade level is an important foundation.

~ Soraya Diase Coffelt

If you read great literature every day, you will uplift your spirit, soul and self.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The world of books, the greatest possessions.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea - for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.

~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined?

~ Dorothy L. Sayers

He switched off the light, came back and sat in the chair. In the darkness, Liesel kept her eyes open. She was watching the words.

~ Markus Zusak

If you think of religion as something that offers a picture of something more grand than us, reading does the same thing. Reading enables us to lift ourselves from our current situation to something higher – and better. It expands one’s own imagination.

~ Meshack Asare

Before Gutenberg, libraries were small -- the Cambridge University library had only 122 volumes in 1424, for instance; after Gutenberg literacy became widespread.

~ Larry Stone

African leaders must desire to liberates it’s people through intensive education (formal and informal). The African people deserve to be educated.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

To be unable to read was the ultimate measure of wretchedness.

~ David Mccullough

To put an arrogant 'famous' writer in his place: pretend to be illiterate.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We need science education to produce scientists, but we need it equally to create literacy in the public. Man has a fundamental urge to comprehend the world about him, and science gives today the only world picture which we can consider as valid. It gives an understanding of the inside of the atom and of the whole universe, or the peculiar properties of the chemical substances and of the manner in which genes duplicate in biology. An educated layman can, of course, not contribute to science, but can enjoy and participate in many scientific discoveries which as constantly made. Such participation was quite common in the 19th century, but has unhappily declined. Literacy in science will enrich a person's life.

~ Hans Bethe

Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters.

~ Vera Nazarian

Was it too much to expect the rest of the world to care about grammar or pay attention to details?

~ Tina Fey

We are not quite conscious of the reason for our disdain when we refer to the illiterate past as wallowing in ignorance... What divides us from them is the column of print. Theirs was a total culture involving all the senses, while ours is a culture concentrated in the literate eye.

~ Nick Joaquín

Every old man that dies is a library that burns.

~ Amadou Hampâté Bâ

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?

~ C.p. Snow

Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact…

~ Charles Babbage

About two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible answers all or most of the basic questions of life—and 28 percent of them admit that they rarely or never read it!

~ Timothy Beal

I have become very aware how under-represented are the stories of the underprivileged and undervalued. Our records are, in general, very male and if not always the material of the rich, certainly (for obvious reasons) the material of the literate.

~ Sara Sheridan

Their words also make it a lot easier for people to justify that shift -- to convince themselves that surfing the Web is a suitable, even superior, substitute for deep reading and other forms of calm and attentive thought. In arguing that books are archaic and dispensable, Federman and Shirky provide the intellectual cover that allows thoughtful people to slip comfortably in the permanent state of distractedness that defines the online life.

~ Nicholas Carr

[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.

~ David Foster Wallace

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

~ Margaret Atwood

We must strive for literacy and education that teach us to never quit questioning and probing at the assumptions of the day.

~ Bryant Mcgill

We don’t normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound.

~ Ted Chiang

Literacy makes man a victim of advertising. Education makes him a victim of employment.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Any academic skill is quickly achievable if charged with clear purpose and an appeal to enthusiastic self-interest. Tarzan of the Apes only needed about twenty minutes to figure out how to read the beautiful Jane Porter’s cursive writing.

~ T.k. Naliaka

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.

~ Donalyn Miller

Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.

~ Louis L'amour

Literacy is a right, not a privilege.

~ Story Shares