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Illiteracy Quotes

Browse 141 quotes about Illiteracy.

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Illiteracy Quotes

“My throat closed up, and I read and read and read, but no words came. The air became thick and stank of metal- not magic but burning, unforgiving steel creeping toward me, inch by inch. 'Answer it!' Lucien shouted, his voice hitched. My eyes stung. The world was just a blur of letters, mocking me with their turns and shapes.”

ReadingWordsSarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronChallengeA Court Of Thorns And RosesIlliterateLucienIlliteracy
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“You're going to be a High Lord's wife,' Rhys said. 'You'll be expected to maintain your own correspondences, perhaps even give a speech or two. And the Cauldron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appropriate for you. Make menus for dinner parties, write thank-you letters for all those wedding gifts, embroider sweet phrases on pillows... It's a necessary skill. And, you know what? Why don't we throw in shielding while we're at it. Reading and shielding- fortunately, you can practice both together.' 'They are both necessary skills,' I said through my teeth, 'but you are not going to teach me.' 'What else are you going to do with yourself? Paint? How's that going these days, Feyre?”

FunnySarah J MaasSarcasmFeyreFeyre ArcheronRhysandRhysA Court Of Mist And FuryIlliteracyLearn To Read
Book:A Court of Mist and Fury
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“I know my alphabet,' I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front of me. 'I'm not that stupid.' I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs. 'I didn't say you were stupid,' he said. 'I'm just trying to determine where we should begin.' I leaned back in the cushioned seat. 'Since you've refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.' My face warmed. 'Can't you hire a tutor?' He lifted a brow. 'Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?' 'You're a High Lord- don't you have better things to do?' 'Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.' 'You're a real bastard, you know that?' Rhys huffed a laugh. 'I've been called worse. In fact, I think you've called me worse.' He tapped the paper in front of him. 'Read that.' A blur of letters. My throat tightened. 'I can't.' 'Try.' The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked. 'What exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you'd tell me if I worked with you.' 'I didn't specify when I'd tell you.' I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. 'Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe-' 'I get it.' He snorted. 'Try to read it, Feyre.' Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. 'Y-you...' The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. 'Look...' 'Good,' he murmured. 'I didn't ask for your approval.' Rhys chuckled. 'Ab... absolutely.' It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. 'De... Del...' I deigned to glance at him, brows raised. 'Delicious,' he purred. My brows knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. 'You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That's what you wrote?' He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my head. It's true, isn't it? I jolted back, my chair groaning. 'Stop that!' But those claws now dug in- and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his command as he said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.”

FunnySarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronRhysandRhysFlirtingA Court Of Mist And FuryIlliteracyLearning To Read
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“You're going to be a High Lord's wide,' Rhys said. 'You'll be expected to maintain your own correspondences, perhaps even give a speech or two. And the Cauldron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appropriate for you. Make menus for dinner parties, write thank-you letters for all those wedding gifts, embroider sweet phrases on pillows... It's a necessary skill. And, you know what? Why don't we throw in shielding while we're at it. Reading and shielding- fortunately, you can practice both together.' 'They are both necessary skills,' I said through my teeth, 'but you are not going to teach me.' 'What else are you going to do with yourself? Paint? How's that going these days, Feyre?”

FunnySarah J MaasSarcasmFeyreFeyre ArcheronRhysandRhysA Court Of Mist And FuryIlliteracyLearn To Read
Book:A Court of Mist and Fury
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“Who would have thought that the self-righteous human girl couldn't read?' 'Keep your damned mouth shut about it.' 'Me? I wouldn't dream of telling anyone. Why waste that kind of knowledge on petty gossip?' If I'd had the strength, I would have leaped on him and ripped him apart. 'You're a disgusting bastard.' 'I'll have to ask Tamlin if that kind of flattery won his heart.”

FunnySarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronRhysandRhysA Court Of Thorns And RosesIlliterateCursingIlliteracy
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“You can't write, yet you learned to hunt, to survive. How?' I paused with my foot on the threshold. 'That's what happens when you're responsible for lives other than your own, isn't it? You do what you have to do.' He was still sitting on the table, still straddling the inner line between the here and now and wherever he'd had to go in his mind to endure the fight with the Bogge. I met his feral and glowing stare. 'You aren't what I expected- for a human,' he said. I didn't reply. And he didn't say good-bye as I walked out.”

ResponsibilitySurvivalSarah J MaasUnexpectedFeyreFeyre ArcheronA Court Of Thorns And RosesTamlinIlliteracyDo What You Have To Do
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“He glanced down at the map on the table, and his voice was void of anything- any emotion, any anger or amusement- as he said, 'What is that?' I snatched up my map. 'I thought I should learn my surroundings.' Drip, drip, drip. I opened my mouth to point out his hand again, but he said, 'You can't write, can you.' I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. Ignorant, insignificant human. 'No wonder you become so adept at other things.' I supposed he was so far gone in thinking about his encounter with the Bogge that he hadn't realised the compliment he'd given me. If it was a compliment.”

Sarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronEmbarrassedInjuredA Court Of Thorns And RosesTamlinIlliterateIlliteracyObservant
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“I could help you write to them, if that's why you're in here.' I jerked back in my seat, almost knocking over the chair, and whirled to find Tamlin right behind me, a stack of books in his arms. I pushed back against the heat rising in my cheeks and ears, the panic at the information he might be guessing I'd been trying to send. 'Help? You mean a faerie is passing up the opportunity to mock an ignorant human?' He set the books down on the table, his jaw tight. I couldn't read the titles glinting on the leather spines. 'Why should I mock you for a shortcoming that isn't your fault? Let me help you. I owe you for the hand.' Shortcoming. It was a shortcoming. Yet it was one thing to bandage his hand, to talk to him as if he wasn't a predator build to kill and destroy, but to reveal how little I truly knew, to let him see that part of me that was still a child, unfinished and raw... His face was unreadable. Though there had been no pity in his voice. I straightened. 'I'm fine.' 'You think I've got nothing better to do with my time than come up with elaborate ways to humiliate you?”

ShameSarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronHelpA Court Of Thorns And RosesTamlinIlliterateIlliteracyShortcoming
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“Gather some food and go out into the streets and into the remote villages to educate the ill-educated and the illiterate - first feed their stomach, then their soul - the purpose is not to make scholars out of them, but simply to open their eyes to the possibilities of the new world - the purpose is to help them become self-reliant.”

HelpingEducationSocial ResponsibilitySelf RelianceSocial WorkSocial DevelopmentSocial ReformIlliteracySocial ReformationEducating
Book:Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity
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“We were both failures, she and I. We'd both run and been brought back, she in days, I in only hours. I probably knew more than she did about the general layout of the Eastern Shore. She knew only the area she'd been born and raised in, and she couldn't read a map. I knew about towns and rivers miles away― and it hadn't done me a damn bit of good! What had Weylin said? That educated didn't mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three hundred fugitives to freedom.”

FreedomEducationSlaveryEscapeIlliteracyHarriet Tubman
Book:Kindred
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“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?”

PeopleHas BeensLawScienceCultureCompanyColdStandardsNegativeScientistAskingResponseSnowTraditionalEducatedGood ManGatheringIlliteracyProvokedThermodynamicsIncredulityGustoTwo Cultures
Book:THE TWO CULTURES: AND A SECOND LOOK
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“For the first time ever we are capable of removing abject poverty, illiteracy and the diseases of poverty from the human condition. The current intensification of global economic integration has demonstrated that there is enough knowledge, technology and capital to bring development to all the people of the world.”

PeopleWorldFirstsHumansEnoughPovertyTechnologyEconomicConditionsDevelopmentDiseaseCapableFirst TimeCurrentsHuman ConditionIntegrationIlliteracyEconomic Integration
Author:Clare Short
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“Literacy is much more than an educational priority - it is the ultimate investment in the future and the first step towards all the new forms of literacy required in the twenty-first century. We wish to see a century where every child is able to read and to use this skill to gain autonomy.”

FirstsChildrenUseAbleFormReadingWishEducationStepsLearningCenturyPoliticianFutureSkillsGainsUltimateTwentiesInvestmentEducationalPrioritiesFirst StepsLiteracyAutonomyIlliteracyChildren LearningUnesco
Author:Irina Bokova
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“There aren't enough professionals to solve the world's problems. There will never be enough doctors to solve the health problems of the world. There will never be enough teachers to solve the education problems of the world - illiteracy. There will never be enough missionaries to care and comfort and share the Good News. It has to be done by normal, ordinary people.”

PeopleWorldDoneEnoughProblemCareTeacherShareComfortNormalNewsOrdinaryDoctorsSolveGood NewsOrdinary PeopleIlliteracyHealth Problems
Author:Rick Warren
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“The need for general scientific understanding by the public has never been larger, and the penalty for scientific illiteracy never harsher. Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate.”

PeopleNeedsCausesUnderstandingDecisionIssuesFundamentalsMedicineClimateFoolishChemicalsPenaltiesEfficacyToxicityIlliteracy
Author:Peter Agre
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“A political system seeking to function amongst ignorant, illiterate and barbaric people could have marvelous principles but could only succeed in being ignorant, illiterate and barbaric unless one addressed the people one by one and cured the ignorance, illiteracy and barbarism of each citizen.”

PeoplePoliticalPrinciplesIgnoranceCitizensSucceedFunctionSeekingIgnorantMarvelousPolitical SystemsBarbarismIlliterateIlliteracyBarbaricBeing Ignorant
Author:L. Ron Hubbard
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“In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. The early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone.”

MenDoeStillsRealRealityTodayCultureLeftStreetsCenturyDegreesThirdsTheaterAncientCrowdsPhrasesPioneersPublic EducationForumsIlliteracyAncient TimesAlexandria
Author:George Sarton
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“We live in a world in which we are able to communicate very quickly in many different ways, and yet we find communicating more difficult than ever. When in fact we need communication more urgently than ever, because the enemies that threaten us are universal: drugs, illiteracy and crime. We have to fight against them together.”

WorldWayNeedsDifferentFactsAbleTogetherFightingDifficultEnemyCrimeCommunicationDrugUniversalCommunicateDifferent WaysIlliteracy
Author:Tom Cruise
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