International Literacy Day 2015
International Literacy Day is being celebrated across the world on 8 September. Getty

International Literacy Day is being celebrated across the world on 8 September, with this year's theme being "literacy and sustainable societies". The day was designated as such by Unesco and first observed in 1966.

IBTimes UK has compiled the following quotes from famous personalities to celebrate, support and encourage literacy:

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins." - Benjamin Franklin

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." - Mark Twain

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." - Frederick Douglass

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death" - Albert Einstein

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength." - Maya Angelou

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope." - Kofi Annan

"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." - B.B. King

"I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp." - JK Rowling

"A book is a gift you can open again and again." - Garrison Keillor

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