The Great Books Reader Quotes

“God bestows great gifts on human beings with perfect justice, but not All gifts we are given come from God. Some gifts come from society or culture, and it is here that problems develop.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Chaucer, like Homer, writes about a journey, but as a Christian he has a different goal. Homer wanted to go home, but Chaucer's pilgrims want a place of man's true home: paradise”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Erasmus’s Bible-saturated mind. His was a mind too broad for fundamentalism, which rejects reason, and too honest for intellectualism, which rejects revelation.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Try to get inside the world of Homer and see what it would be like to think with his view of reality. Only then can you begin to judge it, because only then do you really understand it.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Great Books Reader is a useful first handbook for facilitating one important virtue: being well-read. Being well-read is not sufficient, and it isn’t the highest virtue to which we can strive, but it is both necessary and practical. We are, after all, people of a Great Book; no Christian leader ought to choose illiteracy or intentionally fail to develop the intellectual skills needed to read well.”
― John Reynolds, The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Austen knew nothing of our modern quest for equality. People are not numbers, and so they are never “equal.” Some folk are higher placed than others, have more money, were more fortunate in their parents, or are brighter. These gifts do not come to us by merit but by the unfathomable providence of God.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“The Romans were a strong power before Virgil, but the Greeks had captured their imaginations. While Rome conquered physical Greece, Greek mythology had enveloped Rome. The Empire coul be confident in itself until a Roman poet matched Homer and harmonized Greek civilization with Roman ideals”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“For Aristotle, it's not enough simply to act in accordance with the reason once in a while. We must cultivate habits of virtue that develop into a firmly established moral character over a lifetime.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“If Christianity is true, then every argument will, if pursued to the end, lead to Jesus.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“By reading older books we get a taste of the conversation of Heaven.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Reading only a bit of a great book (e.g., Plato’s Republic) is like getting engaged but never marrying. The initial experience is pleasurable but can become frustrating if prolonged.”
― John Reynolds, The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Why, then, does truth generate hatred, and why does thy servant who preaches the truth come to be an enemy to them who also love the happy life, which is nothing else than joy in the truth—unless it be that truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else besides her wish that to be the truth which they do love. Since they are unwilling to be deceived, they are unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived. Therefore, they hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love in place of the truth. They love truth when she shines on them; and hate her when she rebukes them. And since they are not willing to be deceived, but do wish to deceive, they love truth when she reveals herself and hate her when she reveals them. On this account, she will so repay them that those who are unwilling to be exposed by her she will indeed expose against their will, and yet will not disclose herself to them. . . .”
― John Reynolds, The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Tolstoy does not tell us how things look to the author; he tells us how they look to the characters. In short, he does not use simile and metaphor. (That astonishing assertion in Wood’s review is what got me started reading Tolstoy in the first place. How can anyone write without using metaphor and simile? That would be like—never mind.)”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Can we really fix ourselves? Can we really see what needs to be seen and do what needs to be done? Tolstoy suggests we can, even though the road will be long and arduous. He is Orthodox enough to see that humans are sinners in need of mercy, but not Orthodox enough to get to the root of the problem. The prophet does not plunge deeply enough into the human heart. Tolstoy was Christian enough to see that evil exists but not Orthodox enough to get to the root of the problem.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Every nation needs more people who love liberty, fear mob rule, and hate tyranny with the consistent logic and passion of Alexis de Tocqueville. He is still quoted by presidential candidates, but too often he’s ignored by presidents, and therein lies the danger. Tocqueville reads beautifully but governs even better.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Modernity gone wrong has isolated humanity and made human reason autonomous of (and dismissive toward) revelation.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“while modernity is not Christianity, modernity is the product of a Christian civilization. Lately the defects of modernity have been made plain to us while its virtues have been taken for granted.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Here (in Thomas Aquinas) is the mind that prepared the way for the scientific and industrial revolutions. Here is the mind that was Catholic enough to embrace any good idea, from wherever it came.”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization

“Growing up loving the Bible made me apt to love other books. I don't love them in the same way I love the Bible, but a lesser love came easily. The splendor of sunlight does not take away”
― John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization