Quotes by Mortimer Adler

“Love without conversation is impossible.”

“Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.”

“The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God.”

“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.”

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.”

“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.”

“Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.”

“Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.”

“Conjugal love, or the friendship of spouses, can persist even after sexual desires have weakened, withered, and disappeared.”

“Ultimately, we wish the joy of perfect union with the person we love.”

“Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.”

“Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.”

“Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.”

“You can't be a philosopher and an activist. If you do, you get all mixed up.”

“Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read...”

“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.”

“The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.”

“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.”

“[Television, radio, and magazines] are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most act...”

“Montaigne speaks of an Abecedarian ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C’s, cannot read a...”