Miriam Joseph > Quotes

“Studying the liberal arts is an intransitive activity; the effects of studying these arts stays within the individual and perfects the faculties of the mind and spirit. The study of liberal arts is like the blooming of a rose; it brings to fruition the possibilities of human nature. The utilitarian or servile arts enable one to be a servant - of another person, of the state, of a corporation, or of a business - and to earn a living. The liberal arts, in contrast, teach one how to live; they train the faculties and bring them to perfection; they enable a person to rise above his material environment to live an intellectual, a rational, and therefore a free life in gaining truth.”
― Sister Miriam Joseph

“Sister Miriam Joseph rescued that integrated approach to unlocking the power of the mind and presented it for many years to her students at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. She learned about the trivium from Mortimer J. Adler, who inspired her and other professors at Saint Mary’s to study the trivium themselves and then to teach it to their students. In Sister Miriam Joseph’s preface to the 1947 edition of The Trivium, she wrote, “This work owes its inception…to Professor Mortimer J. Adler of the University of Chicago, whose inspiration and instruction gave it initial impulse.” She”
― Sister Miriam Joseph, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric

“Words, being all proper names, would become meaningless at the time of the destruction of the objects they symbolized. They could not even be explained the way proper names are now explained by means of common names (for example, William Caxton, 1422?–1491, first English”
― Miriam Joseph, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric

“A particular or empirical description, such as the present store manager, this computer, the woman who made the flag, the furniture in this house, the microbe now dividing in the petri dish, can symbolize the individual or an aggregate.”
― Miriam Joseph, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric