A Quote by Harlan Ellison

In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.

Harlan Ellison

Quote Topics

Anything Days Felony Functional Illiteracy Keeps People Stupid These Days Widespread

Quote Author

Harlan Ellison
American - Writer
May 27, 1934 - June 28, 2018

Illiteracy does not impede the practice of democracy, as witnessed by the success of democracy in India despite the high illiteracy rate. One doesn't need a university diploma to realize that the ruler is oppressive and corrupt. On the other hand, to eradicate illiteracy requires that we elect a fair and efficient political regime.

Alaa Al Aswany

Illiteracy at the poverty level (mainly a matter of bad grammar) does not alarm me nearly as much as the illiteracy of the well-to-do.

Mary McCarthy

As part of the National Strategy, the Government should commit itself to the virtual elimination of functional illiteracy and innumeracy.

May-Britt Moser

People are the common denominator of progress. So no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills,and the other familiar furniture of economic development. But we are coming to realize that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.

John Kenneth Galbraith

One of the things that amazes me is the amount of functional illiteracy in this country... people can't read to get around, or people who can't read the newspaper but can barely read street signs.

Edward Albert

Illiteracy is rampant. People are out of communication.

Karen Black

The major accomplishment of analyzing illiteracy so far has been the listing of symptoms: the decrease in functional literacy; a general degradation of writing skills and reading comprehension; an alarming increase of packaged language (cliches used in speeches, canned messages); and a general tendency to substitute visual media (especially television and video) for written language.

Mihai Nadin

To pine for the days before public education became a practical reality is to pine for an America held back by mass ignorance and mass illiteracy.

Timothy Noah

Freedom is meaningless if people cannot put food in their stomachs, if they can have no shelter, if illiteracy and disease continue to dog them.

Nelson Mandela

Politicians exploit economic illiteracy.

Walter E. Williams

Monolingualism is the illiteracy of the 21st century!

Greg Roberts

I have condemned my kids to a lifetime of geographic illiteracy.

Ken Jennings

The illiteracy level of our children are appalling.

George W. Bush

By 1940 the literacy figure for all states stood at 96 percent for whites. Eighty percent for blacks. Notice for all the disadvantages blacks labored under, four of five were still literate. Six decades later, at the end of the 20th century, the National Adult Literacy Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress say 40 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites can't read at all. Put another way, black illiteracy doubled, white illiteracy quadrupled, despite the fact that we spend three or four times as much real money on schooling as we did 60 years ago.