#literacy

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are “scientifically illiterate.” That’s just the same fraction as those African Americans, almost all of them slaves, who were illiterate just before the Civil War—when severe penalties were in force for anyone who taught a slave to read. Of course there’s a degree of arbitrariness about any determination of illiteracy, whether it applies to language or to science. But anything like 95 percent illiteracy is extremely serious. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#literacy #science #social-conditions #education

Just a thought. What sets us above all other life on this planet is our ability to read. What we read can determine our relationship with all other life on this planet. ↗

— M.J. Croan

#life

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

#learning #learning-to-read #literacy #love #love

This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum. ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#illiteracy #reading #money

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#literacy #reading #person

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. ↗

— Mark Twain

#attributed-no-source #literacy #read

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#censorship #illiteracy #reading #read

As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves! ↗

— Jan Karon

#books #literacy #reading #space

Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil and that even the darkest reality can lead to a Happily Ever After. Do not take that gift of hope lightly. It has the power to conquer despair in the midst of sorrow, to light the darkness in the valleys of life, to whisper “One more time” in the face of failure. Hope is what gives life to dreams, making the fairy tale the reality. ↗

— L.R. Knost

#fairy-tales #literacy #dreams

Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them. ↗

— Katharine Fullerton Gerould

#educational #good #hands #illiteracy #illiterate