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Books are absent teachers.

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
Absent
Teachers
Teacher
Books
Book

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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All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.
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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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.
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Love without conversation is impossible.
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Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
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All genuine learning is active, not passive.
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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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More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.
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True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
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The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.
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I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith
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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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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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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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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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First, an angel is spiritually present at whatever place in physical space happens to be occupied by the body on which it acts. It can be present at that place without leaving Heaven which is its spiritual residence.
Mortimer Adler
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The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
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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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