Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]1. Homer — Iliad, Odyssey2. The Old Testament3. Aeschylus — Tragedies4. Sophocles — Tragedies5. Herodotus — Histories6. Euripides — Tragedies7. Thucydides — History of the Peloponnesian War8. Hippocrates — Medical Writings9. Aristophanes — Comedies10. Plato — Dialogues11. Aristotle — Works12. Epicurus — Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus13. Euclid — Elements14. Archimedes — Works15. Apollonius of Perga — Conic Sections16. Cicero — Works17. Lucretius — On the Nature of Things18. Virgil — Works19. Horace — Works20. Livy — History of Rome21. Ovid — Works22. Plutarch — Parallel Lives; Moralia23. Tacitus — Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania24. Nicomachus of Gerasa — Introduction to Arithmetic25. Epictetus — Discourses; Encheiridion26. Ptolemy — Almagest27. Lucian — Works28. Marcus Aurelius — Meditations29. Galen — On the Natural Faculties30. The New Testament31. Plotinus — The Enneads32. St. Augustine — On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine33. The Song of Roland34. The Nibelungenlied35. The Saga of Burnt Njál36. St. Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica37. Dante Alighieri — The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy38. Geoffrey Chaucer — Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales39. Leonardo da Vinci — Notebooks40. Niccolò Machiavelli — The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy41. Desiderius Erasmus — The Praise of Folly42. Nicolaus Copernicus — On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres43. Thomas More — Utopia44. Martin Luther — Table Talk; Three Treatises45. François Rabelais — Gargantua and Pantagruel46. John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion47. Michel de Montaigne — Essays48. William Gilbert — On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies49. Miguel de Cervantes — Don Quixote50. Edmund Spenser — Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene51. Francis Bacon — Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis52. William Shakespeare — Poetry and Plays53. Galileo Galilei — Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences54. Johannes Kepler — Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World55. William Harvey — On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals56. Thomas Hobbes — Leviathan57. René Descartes — Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy58. John Milton — Works59. Molière — Comedies60. Blaise Pascal — The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises61. Christiaan Huygens — Treatise on Light62. Benedict de Spinoza — Ethics63. John Locke — Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education64. Jean Baptiste Racine — Tragedies65. Isaac Newton — Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology67. Daniel Defoe — Robinson Crusoe68. Jonathan Swift — A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal69. William Congreve — The Way of the World70. George Berkeley — Principles of Human Knowledge71. Alexander Pope — Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu — Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws73. Voltaire — Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary74. Henry Fielding — Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones75. Samuel Johnson — The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets . Mortimer J. Adler
Some Similar Quotes
  1. A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. - David Mitchell
  2. The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  3. It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and... - Deb Caletti
  4. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."" Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes,... - Jane Austen
  5. Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you. - E. Lockhart
More Quotes By Mortimer J. Adler
  1. The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too...
  2. Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgement if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason...
  3. Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
  4. There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.
  5. ....a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But...
Related Topics