Quote

All genuine learning is active, not passive.

Mortimer Adler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Genuine
Active
Leadership
Learning
Sports
Passive

More quotes by Mortimer Adler

Image
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
Image
Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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
Image
Angels are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence. They are forms of extra-cosmic intelligence.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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
Image
... 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
Image
All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.
Mortimer Adler
Image
The dictionary also invites a playful reading. It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment. There are worse ways to kill time.
Mortimer Adler
Image
The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
Mortimer Adler
Image
Freud's view is that all love is sexual in its origin or its basis. Even those loves which do not appear to be sexual or erotic have a sexual root or core. They are all sublimations of the sexual instinct.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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
Image
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.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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
Image
The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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
Image
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
Image
... always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.
Mortimer Adler
Image
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.
Mortimer Adler
Image
To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.
Mortimer Adler