BEST Mortimer J. Adler Books & Quotes of All Time (February 2023)

by Arthur Worsley
M.A. Psychology, Oxford. McKinsey Alum. Founder & Editor at TAoL.

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Contents

1. Who Was Mortimer J. Adler?

2. The Best Mortimer J. Adler Books of All Time

3. More Books Like Mortimer J. Adler's Books

4. Best Mortimer J. Adler Quotes

5. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Who Was Mortimer J. Adler?

Mortimer J. Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California.[1] He taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, served as chairman of the Encyclopædia Britannica Board of Editors, and founded his own Institute for Philosophical Research.

Learn more about Mortimer J. Adler

The Best Mortimer J. Adler Books of All Time

Why these best Mortimer J. Adler books and not others? To stay objective, I rank all my book recommendations by a combination of what’s most loved (Goodreads rating), what’s most popular (Goodreads review count) and what’s proven timlessly relevant (first publication date).

This isn’t a whimsical list. It’s a data-driven, crowdsourced collection of the best Mortimer J. Adler books ever published as decided by book lovers like you.

And if you think something's missing? I LOVE book recommendations so if there are any other books by Mortimer J. Adler that you think deserve mentioning, email me and I’ll be sure to include them in the next round of updates.

Until then, here are the best Mortimer J. Adler books of all time...

Best Mortimer J. Adler Books: How to Read a Book

1. How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler (FREE Summary)

The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

How to Read a Book is THE classic guide to reading faster, deeper and more effectively than you ever realised was possible - by deep-thinkers, philosophers and life-long learners, M. Adler and C. van Doren.

Published 1940 // 426 pages // Rated 4.0 over 20,700 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mortimer J. Adler Books: Great Books of the Western World

2. Great Books of the Western World - Mortimer J. Adler

Published 1952 // 37,000 pages // Rated 4.5 over 200 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mortimer J. Adler Books: Aristotle for Everybody

3. Aristotle for Everybody - Mortimer J. Adler

Published 1978 // 206 pages // Rated 3.9 over 1,300 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mortimer J. Adler Books: Six Great Ideas

4. Six Great Ideas - Mortimer J. Adler

Published 1981 // 256 pages // Rated 4.0 over 400 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mortimer J. Adler Books: How to Think About God

5. How to Think About God - Mortimer J. Adler

A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan

Published 1980 // 180 pages // Rated 4.0 over 200 reviews on Goodreads

See all Mortimer J. Adler's books on Amazon
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More Books Like Mortimer J. Adler's Books

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Best Mortimer J. Adler Quotes

Here are some of the best Mortimer J. Adler of all time...

"We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Reading can be more or less active, and… the more active the reading the better."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"We can roughly define what we mean by the art of reading as follows: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. The skilled operations that cause this to happen are the various acts that constitute the art of reading."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"With the help of the books read, the syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books… Syntopical reading is probably the most rewarding of all reading activities. The benefits are so great that it is well worth the trouble of learning how to do it."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Every innovation carries in its train a posse of suspicious and, one feels, unpersuadable observers."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"A good liberal arts high school, if it does nothing else, ought to produce graduates who are competent analytical readers. A good college, if it does nothing else, ought to produce competent syntopical readers."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"It is not the stretching that tires you, but the frustration of stretching unsuccessfully because you lack the skill to stretch effectively."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"In order to forget [skills] as separate acts, you have to learn them first as separate acts."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Propositions are nothing but expressions of personal opinion unless they are supported by reasons."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Many persons believe that they know how to read because they read at different speeds. But they pause and go slow over the wrong sentences. They pause over the sentences that interest them rather than the ones that puzzle them."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"For the disputatious and the contentious, a bone can always be found to pick a quarrel over. It makes no difference whether the bone is really a chip on your own shoulder."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"No higher commendation can be given any work of the human mind than to praise it for the measure of truth it has achieved."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"A person who has read widely but not well deserves to be pitied rather than praised."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"A good student frequently becomes a teacher, and so, too, a good reader becomes an author."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"On the whole, it is best to do all that you can by yourself before seeking outside help; for if you act consistently on this principle, you will find that you need less and less outside help."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"Many authors write only for readers who agree with them."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"The very best articles, like the best books, cannot be condensed without loss."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"One of the most remarkable things about the great philosophical books is that they ask the same sort of profound questions that children ask."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

"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."

- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

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