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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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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
Ever
Memory
Stuffing
Nothing
Minds
Brainwashing
Mind
Except
Affecting
Think
Teaching
Forced
Thinking
Teacher
Teachers
Memories
Opposite
Anyone
Opposites
May
Genuine

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Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
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Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
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Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
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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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Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
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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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The teacher's role in discussion is to keep it going along fruitful lines - be moderating, guiding, correcting and arguing like one more students.
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All genuine learning is active, not passive.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
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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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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.
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I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith
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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 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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