Quote

... 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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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
Change
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Occasions
Persons
Least
Seek
Person
Forget
Prepared
Looks
Upon
Reach
Disagrees
Much
Hope
Conversation
Disagreement
Mind
Another
Teaching
Occasion
Ends
Changed
Disagree
Also
Taught
Agreement

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
Mortimer Adler
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The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.
Mortimer Adler
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Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
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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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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Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
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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Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
Mortimer Adler
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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.
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 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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Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.
Mortimer Adler
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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
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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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To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.
Mortimer Adler