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An unexamined idea, to paraphrase Socrates, is not worth having and a society whose ideas are never explored for possible error may eventually find its foundations insecure.
Mark Van Doren
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Mark Van Doren
Age: 78 †
Born: 1894
Born: June 13
Died: 1972
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Film Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
Vermilion County
Illinois
Mark Albert Van Doren
Society
Propaganda
Idea
Error
May
Eventually
Unexamined
Ideas
Errors
Paraphrase
Find
Foundation
Explored
Never
Whose
Socrates
Worth
Foundations
Possible
Insecure
More quotes by Mark Van Doren
There is one thing we can do, and the happiest of people are those who do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present.
Mark Van Doren
To fail to love is not to exist at all.
Mark Van Doren
Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.
Mark Van Doren
It’s a curious thing. I suppose most people think of artists as impatient but I don’t know of any first-rate artist who hasn’t manifested in his career an appalling patience, a willingness to wait and to do his best now in the expectation that next year he will do better.
Mark Van Doren
Memory performs the impossible for man by the strength of his divine arms holds together past and present, beholding both, existing in both, abides in the flowing, and gives continuity and dignity to human life.
Mark Van Doren
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.
Mark Van Doren
I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.
Mark Van Doren
The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed.
Mark Van Doren
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.
Mark Van Doren
There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.
Mark Van Doren
If you look around the table and you can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
Mark Van Doren
Wisdom before experience is only words wisdom after experience is of no avail.
Mark Van Doren
The connectedness of things is what the educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity. No human capacity is great enough to permit a vision of the world as simple, but if the educator does not aim at the vision no one else will, and the consequences are dire when no one does.
Mark Van Doren
Our best chance for happiness is education.
Mark Van Doren
The literature of the world has exerted its power by being translated.
Mark Van Doren
Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor it is the sign that he wants all the truth.
Mark Van Doren
There are two statements about human beings that are true: that all human beings are alike, and that all are different. On those two facts all human wisdom is founded.
Mark Van Doren
Respect for the Truth is an acquired taste.
Mark Van Doren
