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The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
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
Person
Usually
Thinking
Says
People
Philosophy
Wisdom
Knowing
Cannot
Doe
Express
Persons
Thinks
More quotes by Mortimer Adler
To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.
Mortimer Adler
More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.
Mortimer Adler
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
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.
Mortimer Adler
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
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
Mortimer 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 Adler
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
One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.
Mortimer Adler
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
Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
Mortimer Adler
... 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
Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
Mortimer 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 Adler
Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
Mortimer Adler
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
Mortimer Adler
I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought.
Mortimer Adler
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 Adler
I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith
Mortimer 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 Adler
