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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
Without
Inane
Impudent
Disagree
Agree
Understanding

More quotes by Mortimer Adler

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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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Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
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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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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All genuine learning is active, not passive.
Mortimer Adler
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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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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.
Mortimer Adler
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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
Mortimer Adler
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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
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More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.
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.
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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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
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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.
Mortimer Adler
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The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God.
Mortimer Adler
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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
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Love without conversation is impossible.
Mortimer Adler
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Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
Mortimer Adler
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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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Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.
Mortimer Adler