Daily Inspiration Quote by Theodore Bikel

Literacy arrives with a promise of liberation, and Bikel immediately undercuts it: the written word doesn’t automatically democratize knowledge; it reorganizes power. His line is built on a blunt before-and-after contrast that sounds like progress on paper but reveals an old pattern in new clothing. Once language can be stored and circulated, the question isn’t only what gets written, but who gets to access it. The phrase “could not - or were not permitted to - read” is the hinge. It refuses the comforting idea that illiteracy is merely a personal limitation. Sometimes it’s engineered: through law, class, gender, enslavement, schooling, censorship.

“Sermons” is the loaded choice. He’s not talking about neutral explanations or helpful summaries; he’s invoking a moralized, one-directional mode of communication where an authority interprets reality for everyone else. That word pulls the quote toward the history of churches as both literacy gatekeepers and narrative managers, but it also extends cleanly into modern media ecosystems: punditry, propaganda, even algorithmic “explainers” that claim to translate complexity while quietly narrowing acceptable conclusions.

As an actor - someone who lives by spoken performance - Bikel is also implicating the power of voice. When the many can’t verify texts themselves, the few don’t just read aloud; they stage meaning. The subtext is less anti-writing than anti-monopoly: print can widen the world, but it can just as easily produce a priestly class of interpreters. The warning lands because it’s historically accurate and uncomfortably current.