The Meaning of Life – Mortimer Adler

atkins-bookshelf-quotationsThe question is not “Why are we here?’ but “How should we live our lives?” The answer is to be found in Aristotle’s Ethics. All of our technological advances have not changed that essentially difficult question. The Greeks of the fifth century B.C.  are our contemporaries; we are no wiser than they were. Remember Harry Truman’s response when asked why he was reading Plutarch’s Lives? Said the President: “To find out what’s going on in Washington.”

Mortimer Adler, educator, writer, philosopher, a member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, and founder of the Great Books of the Western World program, as quoted in The Meaning of Life: Reflections in Words and Pictures on Why We Are Here, edited by David Friend, Little Brown (1991)

Read related posts: The Meaning of Life by Peter Gay
The Meaning of Life by Joseph Campbell
Where to Find the Meaning of Life
Life’s Most Important Questions

 


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