Mortimer Adler

“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.”

“Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I wonder if most people ever ask themselves why love is connected with reproduction. And if they do ask themselves about this, I wonder what answer they give.”

“Theories of love are found in the works of scientists, philosophers, and theologians.”

“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.”

“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 is a world of difference here between demanding justice... and begging or pleading for love.”

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

“Idling is important. Most people don't know how. They're afraid of it. This explains why they turn on the television set or pick up the newspaper. They think they have to be doing something.”

“In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop into it. Those are the gifts of subterranean conscious.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“Work is toil: what one does only to earn a living. If it gives pleasure, it is leisure.”

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

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

“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 with the good of others.”

“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 give pleasure to the persons thus loved and not merely to use them for our own selfish pleasure.”