Mortimer J. Adler Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Mortimer J. Adler.
Famous Quotes By Mortimer J. Adler
The essence of tragedy is time, or rather the lack of it. There is no problem in any Greek tragedy that could not have been solved if there had been enough time, but there is never enough. Decisions, choices have to be made in a moment, there is no time to think and weigh the consequences; and, since even tragic heroes are fallible - especially fallible, perhaps - the decisions are wrong. It is easy for us to see what should have been done, but would we have been able to see in time? That is the question that you should always ask in reading any Greek tragedy. — Mortimer J. Adler
The student can read as fast as his mind will let him, not as slow as his eyes make him. — Mortimer J. Adler
If an author does not give reasons for his propositions, they can only be treated as expressions of personal opinion on his part. — Mortimer J. Adler
When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it - which comes to the same thing - is by writing in it. — Mortimer J. Adler
The first stage of elementary reading - reading readiness - corresponds to pre-school and kindergarten experiences. — Mortimer J. Adler
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 J. Adler
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature. — Mortimer J. Adler
Read the book through, undeterred and undismayed by the paragraphs, footnotes, comments, and references that escape you. If you let yourself get stalled, if you allow yourself to be tripped up by any one of these stumbling blocks, you are lost. — Mortimer J. Adler
The trouble is that many people regard disagreement as unrelated to either teaching or being taught. They think that everything is just a matter of opinion. I have mine, and you have yours; and our right to our opinions is as inviolable as our right to private property. On such a view, communication cannot be profitable if the profit to be gained is an increase in knowledge. Conversation is hardly better than a ping-pong game of opposed opinions, a game in which no one keeps score, no one wins, and everyone is satisfied because he does not lose - that is, he ends up holding the same opinions he started with. — Mortimer J. Adler
The reader who fails to ponder, or at least mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
These three rules of analytical reading - about terms, propositions, and arguments - can be brought to a head in an eighth rule, which governs the last step in the interpretation of a book's content. More than that, it ties together the first stage of analytical reading (outlining the structure) and the second stage (interpreting the contents). The last step in your attempt to discover what a book is about was the discovery of the major problems that the author tried to solve in the course of his book. (As — Mortimer J. Adler
A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever. — Mortimer J. Adler
Reading a book is a kind of conversation. You may think it is not conversation at all, because the author does all the talking and you have nothing to say. If you think that, you do not realize your full obligation as a reader - and you are not grasping your opportunities. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
A good performance, like a human life, is a temporal affair - a process in time. It is good as a whole through being good in its parts, and through their good order to one another. It cannot be called good as a whole until it is finished. During the process all we can say of it, if we speak precisely, is that it is becoming good. The same is true of a whole human life. Just as the whole performance never exists at any one time, but is a process of becoming, so a human life is also a performance in time and a process of becoming. And just as the goodness that attaches to the performance as a whole does not attach to any of its parts, so the goodness of a human life as a whole belongs to it alone, and not to any of its parts or phases. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
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
The first dictionaries were glossaries of Homeric words, intended to help Romans read the Iliad and Odyssey as well as other Greek literature employing the 'archaic' Homeric vocabulary. — Mortimer J. Adler
If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart. — Mortimer J. Adler
The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read. — Mortimer J. Adler
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. — Mortimer J. Adler
A lecture has been well described as the process whereby the notes of the teacher become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either. — Mortimer J. Adler
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 J. Adler
The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements - all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics - to make it easy for him to "make up his own mind" with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back" the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think. — Mortimer J. Adler
We hope you have not made the error of supposing that to criticize is always to disagree. (...) To agree is just as much of an exercise of critical judgment on your part as to disagree. — Mortimer J. Adler
One constant is that, to achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read different things at different - appropriate - speeds, not everything at the greatest possible speed. As Pascal observed three hundred years ago, "When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing." Since — Mortimer J. Adler
It is only obvious that teaching is a very special art, sharing withonly two other arts-argriculture and medicin-an exceptionally important characteristic. — Mortimer J. Adler
From your point of view as a reader, therefore, the most important words are those that give you trouble. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
Even a cursory perusal reveals a very great range of reference. There is hardly a single human action that has not been called - in one way or another - an act of love. Nor is the range confined to the human sphere. If you proceed far enough in your reading, you will find that love has been attributed to almost everything in the universe; that is, everything that exists has been said by someone either to love or to be loved - or both. — Mortimer J. Adler
To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent. — Mortimer J. Adler
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 J. Adler
The failure in reading -the omnipresent verbalism- of those who have not been trained in the arts of grammar and logic shows how lack of such discipline results in slavery to words rather than mastery of them. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
one learns to do by doing. — Mortimer J. Adler
Reading and the Democratic Ideal of Education — Mortimer J. Adler
You must be able to say "I understand," before you can say "I agree," or "I disagree," or "I suspend judgment. — Mortimer J. Adler
The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live. — Mortimer J. Adler
Remember Bacon's recommendation to the reader: Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. — Mortimer J. Adler
For those of us who are no longer in school, we observed, it is necessary, if we want to go on learning and discovering, to know how to make books teach us well. In that situation, if we want to go on learning, then we must know how to learn from books, which are absent teachers. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
Don't try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you. — Mortimer J. Adler
If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you don't already possess — Mortimer J. Adler
The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time. — Mortimer J. Adler
The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. 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. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious; you do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do. — Mortimer J. Adler
The human mind is as naturally sensitive to arguments as the eye is to colors. (There may be some people who are argument-blind!) But the eye will not see if it is not kept open, and the mind will not follow an argument if it is not awake. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
A book is a work of art. (Again, — Mortimer J. Adler
Great speed in reading is a dubious achievement; it is of value only if what you have to read is not worth reading. — Mortimer J. Adler
The rules for reading yourself to sleep are easier to follow than are the rules for staying awake while reading. Get into bed in a comfortable position, make sure the light is inadequate enough to cause slight eyestrain, choose a book that is either terribly difficult or terribly boring - in any event, one that you do not really care whether you read or not - and you will be asleep in a few minutes. Those who are experts in relaxing with a book do not have to wait for nightfall. A comfortable chair in the library will do any time — Mortimer J. Adler
Understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. — Mortimer J. Adler
Men are creatures of passion and prejudice. The language they must use to communicate is an imperfect medium, clouded by emotion and colored by interest, as well as inadequately transparent for thought. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
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
The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
The great writers have always been great readers, but that does not mean that they read all the books that, in their day, were listed as the indispensable ones. In many cases, they read fewer books than are now required in most of our colleges, but what they did read, they read well. Because they had mastered these books, they became peers with their authors. They were entitled to become authorities in their own right. In the natural course of events, a good student frequently becomes a teacher, and so, too, a good reader becomes an author. — Mortimer J. Adler
The reader tries to uncover the skeleton that the book conceals. The author starts with the skeleton and tries to cover it up. His aim is to conceal the skeleton artistically or, in other words, to put flesh on the bare bones. If he is a good writer, he does not bury a puny skeleton under a mass of fat; on the other hand, neither should the flesh be too thin, so that the bones show through. If the flesh is thick enough, and if the flabbiness is avoided, the joints will be detectable and the motion of the parts will reveal the articulation. — Mortimer J. Adler
In short, we can only learn from our "betters". — Mortimer J. Adler
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
Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. — Mortimer J. Adler
The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
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
If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It's the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
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
The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. — Mortimer J. Adler
Always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion. — Mortimer J. Adler
A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life. — Mortimer J. Adler
Scientific objectivity is not the absence of initial bias. It is attained by frank confession of it. — Mortimer J. Adler
The characteristics of this kind of reading are perhaps summed up in the word "orthodox," which is almost always applicable. The word comes from two Greek roots, meaning "right opinion." These are books for which there is one and only one right reading; any other reading or interpretation is fraught with peril, from the loss of an "A" to the damnation of one's soul. This characteristic carries with it an obligation. The faithful reader of a canonical book is obliged to make sense out of it and to find it true in one or another sense of "true." If he cannot do this by himself, he is obliged to go to someone who can. This may be a priest or a rabbi, or it may be his superior in the party hierarchy, or it may be his professor. In any case, he is obliged to accept the resolution of his problem that is offered him. He reads essentially without freedom; but in return for this he gains a kind of satisfaction that is possibly never obtained when reading other books. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. — Mortimer J. Adler
To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.
This distinction is familiar in terms of the differences between being able to remember something and being able to explain it. If you remember what an author says, you have learned something from reading him. If what he says is true, you have even learned something about the world. But whether it is a fact about the book or a fact about the world that you have learned, you have gained nothing but information if you have exercised only your memory. You have not been enlightened. 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
Now there is no other way of forming a habit of operation than by operating. — Mortimer J. Adler
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
As arts, grammar and logic are concerned with language in relation to thought and thought in relation to language. That is why skill in both reading and writing is gained through these arts. — Mortimer J. Adler
Any good argument can be put into a nutshell. There — Mortimer J. Adler
But it may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world — Mortimer J. Adler