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To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.

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
Impudent
Disagree
Agree
Understanding
Without
Inane

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
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Love wishes to perpetuate itself. Love wishes for immortality.
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The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
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Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
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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.
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More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.
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The dictionary also invites a playful reading. It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment. There are worse ways to kill time.
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Love without conversation is impossible.
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Political democracy cannot flourish under all economic conditions. Democracy requires an economic system which supports the political ideals of liberty and equality for all. Men cannot exercise freedom in the political sphere when they are deprived of it in the economic sphere.
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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
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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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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.
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Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.
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I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith
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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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Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
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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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The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God.
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