Mortimer Adler Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.

  Mortimer Adler

  Wisdom, Ignorance, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.

  Mortimer Adler

  Thinking, Wind, Sometimes

  8 Copy quote

• Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That's why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.

  Mortimer Adler

  True Love, Love Is, Giving

  11 Copy quote

• ... The person who, at any stage of a conversation, disagrees, should at least hope to reach agreement in the end. He should be as much prepared to have his own mind changed as seek to change the mind of another ... No one who looks upon disagreement as an occasion for teaching another should forget that it is also an occasion for being taught.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teaching, Agreement, Mind

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Teachers may think they are stuffing minds, but all they are ever affecting is the memory. Nothing can ever be forced into anyone's mind except by brainwashing, which is the very opposite of genuine teaching.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Memories, Teaching

  13 Copy quote

• The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Way, Reader

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Ideas, Telephones

  Mortimer Jerome Adler, Geraldine Van Doren (1988). “Reforming education: the opening of the American mind”, Macmillan Pub Co

  7 Copy quote

• It's not how many books you get through, it's how many books get through you.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book

  6 Copy quote

• The tragedy of being both rational and animal seems to consist in having to choose between duty and desire rather than in making any particular choice

  Mortimer Adler

  Animal, Choices, Desire

  4 Copy quote

• Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.

  Mortimer Adler

  Numbers, Broken, Habit

  5 Copy quote

• Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.

  Mortimer Adler

  Lonely, Being Alone, Feeling Alone

  32 Copy quote

• If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Mean

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

  21 Copy quote

• Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

  Mortimer Adler

  Men, Liberty, Arbitrary

  53 Copy quote

• Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.

  Mortimer Adler

  Thinking, Justice, Different

  5 Copy quote

• If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Order

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.330, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• The materialist assumption that spiritual substances do not exist is as much an act of faith as the religious belief in the reality of angels.

  Mortimer Adler

  Spiritual, Religious, Angel

  Mortimer J. Adler (1982). “Angels and Us”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.

  Mortimer Adler

  Life, Wisdom, Book

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

• Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Reading

  4 Copy quote

• The ultimate end of education is happiness or a good human life, a life enriched by the possession of every kind of good, by the enjoyment of every type of satisfaction.

  Mortimer Adler

  Satisfaction, Kind, Ends

  Mortimer Jerome Adler (1977). “Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling”, Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press

  38 Copy quote

• The ability to retain a child's view of the world with at the same time a mature understanding of what it means to retain it, is extremely rare - and a person who has these qualities is likely to be able to contribute something really important to our thinking.

  Mortimer Adler

  Children, Mean, Thinking

  16 Copy quote

• If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than love.

  Mortimer Adler

  Self, Lust, Sensual

  Mortimer Jerome Adler (1991). “Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough”, MacMillan Publishing Company

  12 Copy quote

• Love without conversation is impossible.

  Mortimer Adler

  Love, Insomnia, Impossible

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• We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others.

  Mortimer Adler

  Selfish, Concerned

  Mortimer Jerome Adler (1991). “Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough”, MacMillan Publishing Company

  4 Copy quote

• I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith

  Mortimer Adler

  Religious, Blind, Individual

  Mortimer Jerome Adler (1992). “A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher at Large”, MacMillan Publishing Company

  6 Copy quote

• Sin is not only manifested in certain acts that are forbidden by divine command. Sin also appears in attitudes and dispositions and feelings. Lust and hate are sins as well as adultery and murder. And, in the traditional Christian view, despair and chronic boredom - unaccompanied by any vicious act - are serious sins. They are expressions of man's separation from God, as the ultimate good, meaning, and end of human existence.

  Mortimer Adler

  Christian, Attitude, Hate

  4 Copy quote

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