"Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself"
About this Quote
Adler urges a discipline of attention that treats conversation as a shared search rather than a stage for performance. Asking others about themselves is not small talk; it is the basic posture of inquiry, the opening move of dialectic. It honors the other person as a source of perspective and experience you do not yet possess. At the same time, the warning to be on guard about speaking too much reveals how fragile this posture is. The human impulse is to turn the spotlight back on the self, to answer a story with a bigger story, to instruct rather than to understand. Guard suggests vigilance, not silence; you monitor your own urge to dominate so that understanding can grow.
This ethic aligns with Adler’s lifelong project, from How to Read a Book to How to Speak, How to Listen. He taught readers to question a text before judging it, to reconstruct an author’s argument as fairly as possible. The same rule applies to people. Draw them out, ask for definitions, examples, reasons. Only then offer your own view in proportion to what the conversation actually needs. The ideal is not self-erasure but reciprocity, the alternation of asking and answering that builds common ground.
There is also a civic dimension. Adler’s Great Books work framed education as participation in the Great Conversation across centuries. Real participation demands listening. If each speaker guards against monologue, disagreement becomes productive rather than polarizing. The practice cultivates intellectual humility: you might be wrong, and even if you are right, you probably lack the other person’s context.
None of this forbids self-disclosure. It sets a standard: speak to illuminate, not to display; share to advance understanding, not to collect attention. Good questions invite the other to become a co-author of the exchange. Good restraint leaves space for truth to appear between speakers, rather than being drowned out by one.
This ethic aligns with Adler’s lifelong project, from How to Read a Book to How to Speak, How to Listen. He taught readers to question a text before judging it, to reconstruct an author’s argument as fairly as possible. The same rule applies to people. Draw them out, ask for definitions, examples, reasons. Only then offer your own view in proportion to what the conversation actually needs. The ideal is not self-erasure but reciprocity, the alternation of asking and answering that builds common ground.
There is also a civic dimension. Adler’s Great Books work framed education as participation in the Great Conversation across centuries. Real participation demands listening. If each speaker guards against monologue, disagreement becomes productive rather than polarizing. The practice cultivates intellectual humility: you might be wrong, and even if you are right, you probably lack the other person’s context.
None of this forbids self-disclosure. It sets a standard: speak to illuminate, not to display; share to advance understanding, not to collect attention. Good questions invite the other to become a co-author of the exchange. Good restraint leaves space for truth to appear between speakers, rather than being drowned out by one.
Quote Details
| Topic | Humility |
|---|
More Quotes by Mortimer
Add to List
