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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
Disagree
Agree
Understanding
Without
Inane
Impudent

More quotes by 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
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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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The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God.
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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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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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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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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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Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
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Love wishes to perpetuate itself. Love wishes for immortality.
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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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Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.
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True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
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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?
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Love without conversation is impossible.
Mortimer Adler
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Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
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.
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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.
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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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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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Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
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