Illiterate Quotes - Page 2

• 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, Hands, People

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

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• There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.

  Walt Whitman

  Education, Humble, Illiterate Person

  Walt Whitman (2012). “Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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• All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.

  Roger Bacon

  People, Brain, Facts

  1267 OpusMajus, pt.4, ch.1 (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).

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• Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Sports, Country

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• There are over 200 million illiterate women in India. This low literacy negatively impacts not just their lives but also their families' and the country's economic development. A girl's lack of education also has a negative impact on the health and well-being of her children.

  Sachin Tendulkar

  Girl, Country, Children

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• A new study shows that American students are becoming less proficient in science, and if the trend continues, we will become a nation that's science and chemistry illiterate. And you thought a lot of meth labs are blowing up now?

  Jay Leno

  Trends, Labs, Becoming

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• He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.

  John Adams

  Government, Reputation, Stations

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• I write very raw, ugly, illiterate first drafts very quickly (novels are always in first draft in under a year) and then I spend years and years fine-tuning, revising, editing, etc. What inspires me? Who knows. I am not inspired that much. That’s why I write long form fiction - I am not much of a short story writer. Ideas come seldom, but when a good one comes, I really stick to it and see it out. I’m a problem-solver - I've never thrown out an entire manuscript; I've always forced myself to repair it until it was a lovable thing again.

  Porochista Khakpour

  Writing, Editing, Years

  "Beyond Diaspora: Porochista Khakpour". Interview with Roxanne Naseem Rashedi, lareviewofbooks.org. February 17, 2013.

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• I can read minds, but I'm illiterate.

  Mitch Hedberg

  Funny, Humor, Mind

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• We've been in lots of places that I suppose, by Oxford standards, would be considered illiterate, but everyone's completely conversant with the idea that here is a number, and that number is above it, and that's too high. It's not a very complicated idea.

  Bill McKibben

  Oxford, Ideas, Numbers

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

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• Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so.

  Robertson Davies

  Math, Fool, Enough

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• If you look at the 9/11 highjackers, certainly they were educated, some even had university degrees, but nobody really checked their mothers, who were nearly all illiterate.

  Greg Mortenson

  Mother, University Degrees, Looks

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• What good are laws that cannot be read or understood, or a tongue that spews only hatred or ignorance? What good is the written word to an illiterate man?

  Delores Phillips

  Ignorance, Men, Law

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• The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Strong, Writing, Kids

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• Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Clever, Memories, Our Memories

  'The Rivals' (1775) act 1, sc. 2

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• I attacked Dawkins's book on God because I think he is theologically illiterate.

  Terry Eagleton

  Book, Thinking

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• Meanwhile, their [evolutionists] unproven theories will continue to be accepted by the learned and the illiterate alike as absolute truth, and will be defended with a frantic intolerance that has a parallel only in the bigotry of the darkest Middle Ages. If one does not accept evolution as an infallible dogma, implicitly and without question, one is regarded as an unenlightened ignoramus or is merely ignored as an obscurantist or a naive, uncritical fundamentalist.

  Alfred M. Rehwinkel

  Age, Doe, Ignored

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• You can't have people making decisions about the future of the world who are scientifically illiterate. That's a recipe for disaster. And I don't mean just whether a politician is scientifically literate, but people who vote politicians into office.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Mean, People, Office

  "Neil deGrasse Tyson On Literacy, Curiosity, Education, And Being 'In Your Face'". Interview with Linda Holmes, www.npr.org. February 25, 2010.

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• Here's where I luck out: I'm really computer illiterate.

  Jennifer Aniston

  Luck, Computer

  "Jennifer Aniston: Screens Goddess". Interview with Lynn Hirschberg, www.nytimes.com. October 24, 2008.

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• Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Writing, Hands

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• All through the short afternoon they kept coming, the people who counted themselves Father's friends. Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to Father did it seem that they were all alike. That was Father's secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn't know they were there.

  Corrie Ten Boom

  Girl, Father, Differences

  Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill (2006). “The Hiding Place”, p.29, Chosen Books

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• No one else understands us 7th sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes, we are often aggressively instructed to 'get a life' by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves.

  Lynne Truss

  Mistake, People, Freak

  Lynne Truss (2011). “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, p.4, HarperCollins UK

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• I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.

  John Steinbeck

  Children, Thinking, Joy

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.25, Penguin

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• Normally if I met a guy who was unemployed and illiterate who hadn't bathed in a couple of weeks, I'd be standing in a puddle with excitement, but I'm sort of in a bad mood tonight, so take this bag and give me the fu**ing paper before I pop your head like a zit. He said, you're a lesbian, aren't you?

  Christopher Moore

  Couple, Giving, Guy

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• In a sense the U.S. is climate illiterate. If you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change even in Brazil, China you have more people who know about the problem and think deep cuts in emission are needed.

  Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

  Cutting, Thinking, People

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