Top 120 Mortimer J. Adler Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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

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

— Mortimer J. Adler

103. “Now there is no other way of forming a habit of operation than by operating.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

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

— Mortimer J. Adler

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

— Mortimer J. Adler

106. “We are not told, or not told early enough so that it sinks in, that mathematics is a language, and that we can learn it like any other, including our own. We have to learn our own language twice, first when we learn to speak it, second when we learn to read it. Fortunately, mathematics has to be learned only once, since it is almost wholly a written language.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

107. “If you read for understanding, reading for information will usually take care of itself.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

108. “Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

109. “The student can read as fast as his mind will let him, not as slow as his eyes make him.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

110. “A person who has read widely but not well deserves to be pitied rather than praised. As.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

111. “It is traditional in America to criticize the schools; for more than a century, parents, self-styled experts, and educators themselves have attacked and indicted the educational system.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

112. “Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgement if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?”

— Mortimer J. Adler

113. “Human beings are curious, and especially curious about other human beings.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

114. “Even when you have been somewhat enlightened by what you have read, you are called upon to continue the serach for significance.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

115. “If you are reading a book that can increase your understanding, it stands to reason that not all of its words will be completely intelligible to you. If you proceed as if they were all ordinary words, all on the same level of general intelligibility as the words of a newspaper article, you will make no headway toward interpretation of the book. You might just as well be reading a newspaper, for the book cannot enlighten you if you do not try to understand it.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

116. “Theoretical books teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

117. “It is only when you try to refine the obvious, and give the distinctions greater precision, that you get into difficulties. For.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

118. “Perhaps you are beginning to see how essential a part of reading it is to be perplexed and know it. Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

119. “Great speed in reading is a dubious achievement; it is of value only if what you have to read is not really worth reading. A better formula is this: 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

120. “The communion that can be achieved by human conversation is of great significance for our private lives... It is the spiritual parallel of the physical union by which lovers try to become one.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

121. “One of the most familiar tricks of the orator or propagandist is to leave certain things unsaid, things that are highly relevant to the argument, but that might be challenged if they were made explicit. While.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

122. “But it may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

123. “Having a method without materials to which it can be applied is as useless as having the materials with no method to apply to them.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

124. “To this day, most institutions of higher learning either do not know how to instruct students in reading beyond the elementary level, or lack the facilities and personnel to do so.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

125. “There is no inactive learning, just as there is no inactive reading.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

126. “Many readers fear that it would be disloyal to their commitment to stand apart and impersonally question what they are reading. Yet this is necessary whenever you read analytically.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

127. “The possession of the truth is the highest goal of the human mind.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

128. “Most of us are addicted to non-active reading. The outstanding fault of the non-active or undemanding reader is his inattention to words, and his consequent failure to come to terms with the author.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

129. “There is no more irritating fellow than the one who tries to settle an argument about communism, or justice, or freedom, by quoting from the dictionary. Lexicographers may be respected as authorities on word usage, but they are not the ultimate founts of wisdom.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

130. “Philosophy is like science and unlike history in that it seeks general truths rather than an account of particular events, either in the near or distant past.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

131. “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 J. Adler

132. “From your point of view as a reader, therefore, the most important words are those that give you trouble.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

133. “The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

134. “Being relevant simply consists in paying close attention to the point that is being talked about and saying nothing that is not significantly related to it.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

135. “Find and interpreting the important words.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

136. “Anyone who fails to consult the explanatory notes and the list of abbreviations at the beginning of a dictionary has only himself to blame if he is not able to use it well.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

137. “The halls of academia are like the halls of a madhouse at midnight.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

138. “What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.”

— Mortimer J. Adler