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There Is A Strange Fact About The Human Mind, A Fact That Differentiates The Mind Sharply From The Body. The Body Is Limited In Ways That The Mind Is Not. One Sign Of This Is That The Body Does Not Continue Indefinitely To Grow In Strength And Develop In Skill And Grace. By The Time Most People Are Thirty Years Old, Their Bodies Are As Good As They Will Ever Be; In Fact, Many Persons' Bodies Have Begun To Deteriorate By That Time. But There Is No Limit To The Amount Of Growth And Development That The Mind Can Sustain. The Mind Does Not Stop Growing At Any Particular Age.

-Mortimer Adler

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There Is A Strange

Mortimer Adler

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There Is A Strange Fact About The Human Mind, A Fact That Differentiates The Mind Sharply From The Body. The Body Is Limited In Ways That The Mind Is Not. One Sign Of This Is That The Body Does Not Continue Indefinitely To Grow In Strength And Develop In Skill And Grace. By The Time Most People Are Thirty Years Old, Their Bodies Are As Good As They Will Ever Be; In Fact, Many Persons' Bodies Have Begun To Deteriorate By That Time. But There Is No Limit To The Amount Of Growth And Development That The Mind Can Sustain. The Mind Does Not Stop Growing At Any Particular Age.

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It's Not How Many Books You Get Through, It's How Many Books Get Through You.

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Wonder Is The Beginning Of Wisdom In Learning From Books As Well As From Nature.

The Materialist Assumption That Spiritual Substances Do Not Exist Is As Much An Act Of Faith As The Religious Belief In The Reality Of Angels.

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First, An Angel Is Spiritually Present At Whatever Place In Physical Space Happens To Be Occupied By The Body On Which It Acts. It Can Be Present At That Place Without Leaving Heaven Which Is Its Spiritual Residence.

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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.

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Angels Are Not Merely Forms Of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. They Are Forms Of Extra-cosmic Intelligence.

Books Are Absent Teachers.

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.

Friendship Is A Very Taxing And Arduous Form Of Leisure Activity.

Leisure Activities

Angels Are Able To Know And Understand Better Than The Human Intellect Can, Precisely Because Such Knowledge And Understanding Comes To Them By Way Of Ideas Infused In Them By God.

The Purpose Of Learning Is Growth, And Our Minds, Unlike Our Bodies, Can Continue Growing As We Continue To Live.

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