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There is a sense in which every great book is always over the head of the reader: he can never fully comprehend it. That is why these books are great teachers; they demand the attention of the reader and keep his intelligence on the stretch.

— Robert Maynard Hutchins Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

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More quotes by Robert Maynard Hutchins

The great problem of our time is moral, intellectual, and spiritual.

Education for Freedom (1943)

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Criticisms that I have mentioned come to the same thing: that liberal education is too good for the people.

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Many colleges of liberal arts and the researches of many scholars in the humanities and the social studies are important only to those whose livelihood depends upon them.

The Great Conversation (1952)

The aim of human beings and human societies, if there is one, is material comfort. Freedom is simply doing what you please. The only common principle that we are urged to have is that there are no principles at all.

Education for Freedom (1943)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Maynard Hutchins (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.