Top 120 Mortimer J. Adler Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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 J. Adler

52. “Work that is pure toil, done solely for the sake of the money it earns, is also sheer drudgery because it is stultifying rather than self improving.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

53. “I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

54. “We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

55. “To use a good book as a sedative is conspicuous waste.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

56. “One of the aims of sexual union is procreation – the creation by reproduction of an image of itself, of the union.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

57. “You will find that your comprehension of any book will be enormously increased if you only go to the trouble of finding its important words, identifying their shifting meanings, and coming to terms. Seldom does such a small change in habit have such a large effect.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

58. “As Thomas Hobbes said, “If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

59. “Getting more information is learning, and so is coming to understand what you did not understand before. But there is an important difference between these two kinds of learning.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

60. “The art of reading, in short, includes all of the same skills that are involved in the art of unaided discovery: keenness of observation, readily available memory, range of imagination, and, of course, an intellect trained in analysis and reflection.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

61. “The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

62. “The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God’s love and the love of God.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

63. “Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

64. “Reading well, which means reading actively, is thus not only a good in itself, nor is it merely a means to advancement in our work or career. It also serves to keep our minds alive and growing.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

65. “Sometimes it feels like I’m thinking against the wind.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

66. “A good life is made by accumulating in the course of a lifetime everything that is really good and by wanting nothing that impedes or frustrates this effort.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

67. “The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

68. “Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

69. “Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

70. “Finally, do not try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through. This is the most important rule of all; it is the essence of inspectional reading. Do not be afraid to be, or to seem to be, superficial. Race through even the hardest book. You will then be prepared to read it well the second time.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

71. “Perhaps we know more about the world than we used to, and insofar as knowledge is prerequisite to understanding, that is all to the good. But knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

72. “If we must escape from reality, it should be to a deeper, or greater, reality. This is the reality of our inner life, of our own unique vision of the world. To.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

73. “The question, is it true? can be asked of anything we read. It is applicable to every kind of writing, in one or another sense of “truth” – mathematical, scientific, philosophical, historial and poetical. No higher commendation can be given any work of the human mind than to praise it for the measure of truth it has achieved; by the same token, to criticize it adversely for its failure in this respect is to treat it with the seriousness that a serious work deserves.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

74. “You cannot begin to deal with terms, propositions, and arguments – the elements of thought – until you can penetrate beneath the surface of language.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

75. “Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

76. “Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

77. “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 J. Adler

78. “First, an angel is spiritually present at whatever place in physical space happens to be occupied by the body on which it acts. It can be present at that place without leaving Heaven which is its spiritual residence...”

— Mortimer J. Adler

79. “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 J. Adler

80. “The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

81. “The man who knew an encyclopedia by heart would be in grave danger of incurring the title idiot savant – “learned fool.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

82. “Angels are able to know and understand better than the human intellect can, precisely because such knowledge and understanding comes to them by way of ideas infused in them by God...”

— Mortimer J. Adler

83. “Do not say you agree, disagree, or suspend judgement until you can say “I understand.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

84. “There is no more irritating fellow than the man who tries to settle an argument about communism, or justice, or liberty, by quoting from Webster.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

85. “I wonder if most people ever ask themselves why love is connected with reproduction. And if they do ask themselves about this, I wonder what answer they give.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

86. “A mind not agitated by good questions cannot appreciate the significance of even the best answers. It is easy enough to learn the answers. But to develop actively inquisitive minds, alive with real questions, profound questions – that is another story.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

87. “Think of yourself as a detective looking for clues to a book’s general theme or idea, alert for anything that will make it clearer. Heeding the suggestions we have made will help you sustain this attitude. You will be surprised to find out how much time you will save, pleased to see how much more you will grasp, and relieved to discover how much easier it can be than you supposed.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

88. “The undemanding reader asks no questions-and gets no answers.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

89. “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 J. Adler

90. “The reader who fails to ponder, or at least mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

91. “We must become a nation of truly competent readers, recognizing all that the word competent implies.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

92. “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 J. Adler

93. “The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

94. “Mathematics is one of the major modern mysteries. Perhaps it is the leading one, occupying a place in our society similar to the religious mysteries of another age. If we want to know something about what our age is all about, we should have some understanding of what mathematics is, and of how the mathematician operates and thinks.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

95. “Think of yourself as a detective looking for clues to a book’s general theme or idea, alert for anything that will make it clearer.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

96. “In short, we can only learn from our “betters”.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

97. “In judging a practical book, everything turns on the ends or goals.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

98. “Theories of love are found in the works of scientists, philosophers, and theologians.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

99. “Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

100. “Don’t try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.”

— Mortimer J. Adler