Mortimer Adler Quotes

89 quotes in 1220 categories

• Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable.
• One of the aims of sexual union is procreation - the creation by reproduction of an image of itself, of the union.
• 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…
• Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.
• It is love rather than sexual lust or unbridled sexuality if, in addition to the need or want involved, there is also some impulse to…
• When we ask for love, we don't ask others to be fair to us-but rather to care for us, to be considerate of us. There…
• Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
• We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned…
• You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let…
• If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than…
• Love without conversation is impossible.
• Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.
• Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.
• Conjugal love, or the friendship of spouses, can persist even after sexual desires have weakened, withered, and disappeared.
• Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.
• In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.
• The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.
• We love even when our love is not requited.
• The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.
• Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.

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