Mortimer J. Adler

“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.”

“The reader who fails to ponder, or at least mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster.”

“A lecture has been well described as the process whereby the notes of the teacher become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either.”

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

“Books are absent teachers.”

“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.”

“From your point of view as a reader, therefore, the most important words are those that give you trouble.”

“Don't try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.”

“In short, we can only learn from our "betters".”

“If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.”

“Most of us are addicted to non-active reading. The outstanding fault of the non-active or undemanding reader is his inattention to words, and his consequent failure to come to terms with the author.”

“Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey2. The Old Testament3. Aeschylus – Tragedies4. Sophocles – Tragedies5. Herodotus – Histories6. Euripides – Tragedies7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings9. Aristophanes – Comedies10. Plato – Dialogues11. Aristotle – Works12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus13. Euclid – Elements14. Archimedes – Works15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections16. Cicero – Works17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things18. Virgil – Works19. Horace – Works20. Livy – History of Rome21. Ovid – Works22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion26. Ptolemy – Almagest27. Lucian – Works28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties30. The New Testament31. Plotinus – The Enneads32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine33. The Song of Roland34. The Nibelungenlied35. The Saga of Burnt Njál36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres43. Thomas More – Utopia44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy58. John Milton – Works59. Molière – Comedies60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal69. William Congreve – The Way of the World70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets”

“What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.”

“The student can read as fast as his mind will let him, not as slow as his eyes make him.”

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

“You will find that your comprehension of any book will be enormously increased if you only go to the trouble of finding its important words, identifying their shifting meanings, and coming to terms. Seldom does such a small change in habit have such a large effect.”

“Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from the outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and we continuously need more and more of them. Eventually, they have little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And we we cease to grow, we begin to die.”

“The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used.”

“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.”