Mortimer Adler Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• 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.

  Mortimer Adler

  Motivational, Education, Book

  "Book of Humorous Quotations". Book by Connie Robertson, 1998.

• If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Mean

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Ideas, Telephones

  Mortimer Jerome Adler, Geraldine Van Doren (1988). “Reforming education: the opening of the American mind”, Macmillan Pub Co

• If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.

  Mortimer Adler

  Giving Up, Book, Insight

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

• 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.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Heart, Car

• If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It’s the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Understanding

• It's not how many books you get through, it's how many books get through you.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book

• A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, World, Information

  "How to Read a Book".

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

  Mortimer Adler

  Life, Wisdom, Book

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

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

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Way, Reader

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

• A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Giving

• The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Great Book

• Books are absent teachers.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Absent

• All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Light, Proportion

• If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Order

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.330, Simon and Schuster

• The rules for reading yourself to sleep are easier to follow than are the rules for staying awake while reading. Get into bed in a comfortable position, make sure the light is inadequate enough to cause slight eyestrain, choose a book that is either terribly difficult or terribly boring-in any event, one that you do not really care whether you read or not-and you will be asleep in a few minutes. Those who are experts in relaxing with a book do not have to wait for nightfall. A comfortable chair in the library will do any time

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Sleep

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

• Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Reading

• Let me roughly divide books into those which compete with the movies and those with which the movies cannot compete. They are the books that can elevate or instruct. If they are fine works of fiction, they can deepen your appreciation of human life. If they are serious works of nonfiction, they can inform or enlighten you.

  Mortimer Adler

  Appreciation, Book, Nonfiction

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