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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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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
Thought
Intellectual
Creeds
May
Duty
Suspects
Feel
Belief
Beliefs
Feels
Religious
Obligation
Even
Faith
Rational
Verge
Trying
Wish
Content
Disturbed
Believe
Understand
Individuals
Superstitions
Individual
Blind
Suspect

More quotes by Mortimer Adler

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Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
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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.
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Sometimes it feels like I'm thinking against the wind.
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The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
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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.
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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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Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
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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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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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True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
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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.
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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Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
Mortimer Adler
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Love wishes to perpetuate itself. Love wishes for immortality.
Mortimer Adler
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The ultimate end of education is happiness or a good human life, a life enriched by the possession of every kind of good, by the enjoyment of every type of satisfaction.
Mortimer Adler
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All genuine learning is active, not passive.
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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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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To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.
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