Quotes
Mortimer J. Adler
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.
Mortimer J. Adler
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 J. Adler
Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.
Mortimer J. Adler
Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.
Mortimer J. Adler
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 J. Adler
Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.
Mortimer J. Adler
Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.
Mortimer J. Adler
Eliminating physical contacts of all sorts, what sort of union do we mean when we say that love wishes the joy of perfect union? The answer is spiritual union: through cornpassion and sympathy, through sharing and liking the same things, through living a common life, through knowing and understanding each other.
Mortimer J. Adler
Education equals the discovery of who we are and what we are to be about as human beings.It is the process whereby a man helps himself or another to become what he can be . . . . the process whereby a man is changed for the better . . . to become a good man, which is something he can be, though perhaps not as readily as being a bad man.
Mortimer J. Adler
Desire is the root of relationships based on utility or pleasure-desire for money, fame, or power, desire for bodily pleasure of one sort or another. In sharp contrast, in relationships based on the excellence of the persons involved, love is fundamental and is the root or source of whatever desire comes to exist.