180 Quotes by Mortimer J. Adler
- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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I have seen the fruits of adult education. It can be done. And anyone who has worked in adult education knows that he must appeal for self-help. There are no monitors to keep adults at the task. There are no examinations and grades, none of the machinery of external discipline. The person who learns something out of school is self-disciplined. He works for merit in his own eyes, not credit from the registrar. (1940 ed. page 104)
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- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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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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- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too must be childishly simple in our questions - and maturely wise in our replies.
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- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.
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- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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The undemanding reader asks no questions-and gets no answers.
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Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
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- Author Mortimer J. 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.
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Mathematics is one of the major modern mysteries. Perhaps it is the leading one, occupying a place in our society similar to the religious mysteries of another age. If we want to know something about what our age is all about, we should have some understanding of what mathematics is, and of how the mathematician operates and thinks.
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- Author Mortimer J. Adler
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Human beings are curious, and especially curious about other human beings.
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