Will Durant Quotes
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As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.
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Every state begins in compulsion; but the habits of obedience become the content of conscience, and soon every citizen thrills with loyalty to the flag. The citizen is right; for however the state begins, it soon becomes an indispensable prop to order.
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History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.
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The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws.
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India was the motherland of our race and Samskrit the mother of Europe 's languages...Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
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The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.
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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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Cultivate your garden Do not depend upon teachers to educate you follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony In the end, education, like happiness, is individual, and must come to us from life and from ourselves. There is no way; each pilgrim must make his own path. "Happiness," said Chamfort, "is not easily won; it is hard to find it in ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.
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Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?
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Peace is an unstable equilibrium, which can be preserved only by acknowledged supremacy or equal power.
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By and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them.
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Read, think well of mankind, go to our libraries and rejoice.
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A civilization is born Stoic and dies Epicurean.
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Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever.
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Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
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The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
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In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome.
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A cat has a reputation to protect. If it had a halo, it would be worn cocked to one side.
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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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Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.
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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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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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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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Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.