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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

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Mortimer Adler
Age: 98 †
Born: 1902
Born: December 28
Died: 2001
Died: June 28
Philosopher
Teacher
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Mortimer J. Adler
Mortimer Adler
Make
Fool
Limitation
Thinking
Wisdom
Surely
World
Knowing
Destroyed
Understanding
Genuine
Doe
Mark
Fortified
Human
Limits
Mysteries
Humans
Ignorance
Limitations
Self
Mystery
Deception

More quotes by Mortimer Adler

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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.
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Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
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... 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
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Books are absent teachers.
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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 Adler
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Emancipation of human labor from economic servitude and exploitation, i.e., from organizations of production in which the conditions of work are determined by a master class who own the means of production, and in which the fruits of work are alienated from workers to the benefit of masters.
Mortimer Adler
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The teacher's role in discussion is to keep it going along fruitful lines - be moderating, guiding, correcting and arguing like one more students.
Mortimer Adler
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All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.
Mortimer Adler
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My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy.
Mortimer Adler
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... 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 Adler
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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 Adler
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The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
Mortimer Adler
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The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.
Mortimer Adler
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Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
Mortimer Adler
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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 Adler
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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
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Let me roughly divide books into those which compete with the movies and those with which the movies cannot compete. They are the books that can elevate or instruct. If they are fine works of fiction, they can deepen your appreciation of human life. If they are serious works of nonfiction, they can inform or enlighten you.
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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.
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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 Adler
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Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
Mortimer Adler