Mortimer Adler Quotes

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 never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.
Mortimer Adler

Love, True, Giving

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.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Care, Justice

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.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Selfish, Give

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.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Wrong, Another

Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.
Mortimer Adler

Alone, Love, Lonely

Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Sense, 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 with the good of others.
Mortimer Adler

Good, Selfish, Others

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.
Mortimer Adler

Life, Education, Happiness

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 your mind think.
Mortimer Adler

Time, Mind, Nothing

Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Friendship, Mother

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

Love, Friendship, After

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

Men, Freedom, Rule

Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.
Mortimer Adler

Friendship, Activity, Leisure

I find the selectivity of erotic love - the choice of this man or this woman - much more intelligible if liking the person is the origin of sexual interest, rather than the other way.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Woman, Person

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Different, English

Love without conversation is impossible.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Impossible

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.
Mortimer Adler

Faith, Christian, Problems

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.
Mortimer Adler

Learning, Live, Purpose

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

Single, Book, Idea

There is only one situation I can think of in which men and women make an effort to read better than they usually do. It is when they are in love and reading a love letter.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Women, Men

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.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Justice, Human

We acknowledge but one motive - to follow the truth as we know it, whithersoever it may lead us; but in our heart of hearts we are well assured that the truth which has made us free, will in the end make us glad also.
Mortimer Adler

Truth, Heart, End

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

Time, Yourself, Same

Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
Mortimer Adler

Love, Truly, Sexual

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.
Mortimer Adler

Love, View, Instinct

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Philosopher

Born: December 28, 1902

Died: June 28, 2001

Links

Find on Amazon: Mortimer Adler

Cite this Page: Citation

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