When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate…

When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate. Since I’ve been born, the population has doubled and that total population is now 65 per cent literate. That’s a gain of 130-fold of the literacy. When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans them-selves are literate, able to get the information, we’re in an entirely new relationship to Universe. We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do.

Sourced, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)

Other Buckminster Fuller Quotes

Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken seperately. - View Quote Details on Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior…
Synergy is the only word in our language that means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the separately observed behaviors of any of the system’s separate parts or any subassembly of the system’s parts. There is nothing in the chemistry of a toenail that predicts the existence of a human being. - View Quote Details on Synergy is the only word in our language that means…
You either make sense or you make money. - View Quote Details on You either make sense or you make money.
There are over 2 million cars standing in front of red lights with their engines going. Then we have over 2 million times approximately 100 horsepower being generated as they are idling there, so that we have something like 200 million horses jumping up and down and going nowhere. Now, we have to count that in our economy when we begin to get down to what is the efficiency of the economy. - View Quote Details on There are over 2 million cars standing in front of…
Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns more. He cannot learn less. He may learn that what he thought was true was not true. By the elimination of a false premise, his basic capital wealth which in his given lifetime is disembarrassed of further preoccupation with considerations of how to employ a worthless time-consuming hypothesis. Freeing his time for its more effective exploratory investment is to give man increased wealth. - View Quote Details on Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns…
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. - View Quote Details on You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To…
Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete. - View Quote Details on Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of…
The nearest each of us can come to God is by loving the truth. - View Quote Details on The nearest each of us can come to God is…
“Those whom God hath joined together let no one put asunder.” To Anne Hewlett Fuller on this, our 63rd Wedding Anniversary and my 85 Birthday—July 12, 1980 - View Quote Details on “Those whom God hath joined together let no one put…
I find the audiences very excited. But then they come and say to me, “Your optimism has brushed off on me. I didn’t know we had an option. I feel so much better.” They say, “Your optimism.” And I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don’t tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know what I’m talking about. - View Quote Details on I find the audiences very excited. But then they come…