WHAT ARE THE GREATEST BOOKS?
"The Greatest Books are an Accumulated Treasury of Human Wisdom"

1. Kolbe Home
2. Kolbe's Greatest Books Library
3. Kolbe's Greatest Books of Christian Civilization
are not Britannica's Great Books of Western Civilization

KOLBE'S GREATEST BOOKS are indispensable components of liberal education because liberal education (not "general education" but bona fide liberal education) does what its title connotes: it liberates. Unlike training and schooling that culminate in knowledge and job skills, liberal education culminates in the discovery of truth, which tends to liberate or set a person free from manipulation, lies and deceit:

"Then Jesus said to those Jews, who believed him: If you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32)

Men and women who love the truth, search for it and form a comprehensive and integrated view of things based on these truths are called philosophers. The word philosophy is derived from the Greek roots philo, which means "love" and sophia which means "wisdom". A philosopher is thus any person who pursues truth and loves wisdom - The Greatest Books are an accumulated treasury of wisdom and thus indispensable components of liberal education.

They are called "Greatest" because of the formative impact they have had as a tour de force of Christian Civilization, because they masterfully deal with the greatest questions the human mind is capable of asking, and because they help readers acquire truth, which as we said, is the one attainment of the human mind that sets a person free. Liberal education is thus intended for free men and women or for those who desire to be free.

Because human beings are endowed with an intellect and will made to the image and likeness of God, they possess the potential to become increasingly Godlike. The Trinitarian Mystery that makes man to the image of the Trinity is manifest in man's highest mental faculties: (1) Consciousness and its attendant ability to apprehend (2) the ability to think or reason and (3) the ability to love, which is an intellectual appetite of the mind. Love is not a sentient appetite originating in the passions of the flesh. Love is an intellectual appetite originating in the thoughts of the mind when it knows something or someone to be good and true and beautiful.

When human beings properly exercise and develop their mental faculties, they are able to engage in an on-going pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. The more they grow in wisdom, the more they fall in love with the good that their mind apprehends as good and true and beautiful and, beyond that, with the source of all this goodness, which is God the beginning and end of all that is good. Wisdom thus leads by way of creation to love of the Creator to whom the human mind is progressively united as it grows in wisdom and love. This is a process known as sanctification, a uniquely human process referred to by Western mystics as "divinization" - in the East it is referred to as "theosis" - resulting in various degrees of spiritual growth and phenomenal creative expression in the arts, sciences, and humanities. The Greatest Books are an indispensable collection of many such lovers of God, of man, and of creation (some further developed than others) whose wisdom graces the various arts and sciences in the Judeo-Christian and Classical Natural Law Tradition.

Here in 101 color coded volumes are the writings of eminent statesmen, philosophers, poets, saints, and scientists, the greatest thinkers and exemplars of humankind; men and women dedicated to the development, penetration, and diffusion of noble literature, artistic beauty, and philosophical-theological truths that have shaped the legal, ethical, moral, and spiritual codes, which are the bedrock of Christian Civilization.

BROWN - MATH & SCIENCE (link)
GREEN - LITERATURE (link)
BLUE - POLITICS, HISTORY, LAW (link)
PURPLE - THEOLOGY (link)
BLACK - PHILOSOPHY (link)
RED - SPIRITUAL CLASSICS (link)

These masterful writings have enlightened popes and kings, savants and generals, saints and martyrs along with countless others everywhere. They form the intellectual record of our Christian patrimony and the story of its development.

In every age men and women seek clarity and understanding of ultimate questions asked about the nature of things, about God and man, heaven and hell, wisdom, justice and charity, virtue and vice, about human suffering, the best form of government, the use and abuse of power and authority, the meaning of life and death, and other fundamental questions, which perplex the human mind.

In Dickens and Dostoevsky human nature combats pride, ambition, greed, and envy; in John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila human nature seeks highest perfection; in both Charlemagne's and King Alfred the Great's Law Books, the Old Law revealed to Moses is united to the New Law revealed by Jesus; in La Maitre and Newton man struggles to understand the cosmos; in Augustine and Shakespeare man endeavors to understand himself, while Aquinas and Dante explore virtue, sin, grace, redemption, and final judgment.

When most current novels and best sellers are no longer remembered, the Greatest Books (which have stood, and continue to stand, the test of time) will still be cherished and read by millions as they have been for over two thousand years.