Quotes from Mortimer Adler

RULE 10, and it can be expressed thus: WHEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY.

The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind.

If one could enumerate all the essentials which a sound educational program consider, I would say that the techniques of communication, which make for literacy, are our first obligation, and more so in a cemocracy than in any other kind of society, because it depends on a literate electorate.

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.

The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.

As Thomas Hobbes said, "If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

You will also find authors who do not know the difference between theory and practice, just as there are novelists who do not know the difference between fiction and sociology.

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

1. WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT AS A WHOLE?

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