Will Durant Quotes
Most popular Will Durant Quotes
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
Power dements even more than it corrupts.
The family is the nucleus of civilization.
Education is the transmission of civilization.
The future never just happened. It was created.
Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.
The discipline of desire is the backbone of character.
Science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.
Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to the law.
The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.
Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies in chaos.
To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.
Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.
To give life a meaning one must have a purpose larger than one's self, and more enduring than one's life.
It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
A civilization is not destroyed by barbarian invasion from without; it is destroyed by barbarian multiplication within.
History smiles at all attempts to force its flow into theoretical patterns or logical grooves; it plays havoc with our generalizations, breaks our rules; history is baroque.
Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.
To have a great purpose to work for, a purpose larger than ourselves, is one of the secrets of making life significant, for then the meaning and worth of the individual overflow his personal borders and survive his death.
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks.
