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Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
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Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.
Will Durant
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History assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.
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The laws that Charondas gave to Catana,... A man might divorce his wife, or a wife her husband, said Charondas, but then he or she must not marry anyone younger than the divorced mate.
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I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets.
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Wherever men do things, other men will arise who will explain to them how things should be done.
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Freedom and equality are naturan born enemies.
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Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
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It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
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The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.
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War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy.
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Knowledge that does not generate achievement is a pale and bloodless thing, unworthy of mankind.
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The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.
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Liberty is a product of order.
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Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
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We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street and Broadway.
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The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.
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India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
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Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.
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Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.
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The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.
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Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.
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In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.
Will Durant