Allan Bloom was an author, translator, and educator. His seminal work, The Closing of the American Mind, was a very influential book in my life. (It is a difficult read, but well worth the effort.) This morning, I ran across a small collection of quotations of his. Here are a few that I thought I would pass on.

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

Dr. Bloom died in 1992. I wish I had known him.