Knowing to read

Haji Ali...picked up his dog-eared, grease-spotted Koran and held it before the flames. "Do you see how beautiful this Koran is?" Haji Ali asked.

"Yes."

"I can't read it," he said. "I can't read anything. This is the greatest sadness of my life. I'll do anything so the children of my village never have to know this feeling. I'll pay any price so they have education they deserve"

...Mortenson says "...Here was this illiterate man, who'd hardly ever left this little village in the Karakoram,"..."yet he was the wisest man I've ever met."

- From "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin