Will Durant (Quotes)
@DurantQuotesBot
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Daily quotes from the historian of civilization! (This account is not the author's; he died in 1981. I am only @BrennanColberg , a reader of his.)
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No nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself.
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There is always, in any society, a minority whose instincts rejoice in the permission to persecute; it is a release from civilization.
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L + ratio + don't be a smartass on Twitter unless you're correct
[Will Durant, "The Story of Civilization," vol. II p. 659]
That is not the quote. This is the quote, from "The Story of Civilization", vol. II, "Caesar and Christ" (1944), p. 665.
Someone should tell Elon to follow me.
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The older the civilization, the longer the lawsuits.
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It is refreshing to find a philosopher who is wise enough to be happy.
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Corruption has an ancient pedigree and a probable future.
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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.
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No nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself.
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The constitution of man always rewrites the constitutions of states.
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The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything. We are fragments in infinity and moments in eternity; for such forked atoms to describe the universe, or the Supreme Being, must make the planets tremble with mirth.
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The older the civilization, the longer the lawsuits.
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No religion can hope to win and move the common soul unless it clothes its moral doctrine in a splendor of marvel, legend, and ritual.
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No great nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself.
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To add one significant proposition to geometry is of greater value to humanity than to besiege or defend a city.
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The historian always oversimplifies, and hastily selects a manageable minority of facts and faces out of a crowd of soul and events whose multitudinous complexity he can never quite embrace or comprehend.
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Poets began to write for poets, and became artificial; scholars began to write for scholars, and became dull.
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@elonmusk
Improving them (and reforming marriage policy) was actually one of the biggest priorities of Augustus— and the single one at which he failed & became unpopular!
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Self-respect is the backbone of upright conduct.
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Youth does not come twice to a man, a nation, a literature, or a language.
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Men prefer a false promise to a flat refusal.
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Wealth itself, without the aid of philosophy, puts an end to puritanism and stoicism.
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Law tends to lag behind moral development, not because law cannot learn, but because experience has shown the wisdom of testing new ways in practice before congealing them into law.
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Men begin by seeking happiness and are content at last with peace.
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When a man covers a vast field many errors may be forgiven him if the result adds to our comprehension of life.
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Isocrates thought that the Assembly should be paid by Athens' enemies to meet frequently, since it made so many mistakes.
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Self-respect is the backbone of upright conduct.
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The belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up.
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The middle classes, as well as the rich, begin to distrust democracy as empowered envy, and the poor begin to distrust it as a sham equality of votes stultified by a gaping inequality of wealth.
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A religion is, among other things, a mode of moral government. The historian does not ask if a theology is true—through what omniscience might he judge? Rather he inquires what social and psychological factors combined to produce the religion; how well it accomplished the purpose
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History, like the press, misrepresents life because it loves the exceptional and shuns the newsless career of an honest man or the quiet routine of a normal day.
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We can only mourn over the absurdities for which men have died, and will.
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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.
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The lives of great men all remind us how brief is immortality.
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Men in their migrations carry along their gods.
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Thinking is a perilous enterprise, except in silence.
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New ideas are welcomed only if promising early material advantage.
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Civilization does not die, it migrates; it changes its habitat and its dress, but it lives on. The decay of one civilization, as of one individual, makes room for the growth of another.
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Men begin by seeking happiness and are content at last with peace.
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if anyone wants to read this for themselves:
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Read good books many times, rather than many books; travel slowly, and not too much.
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Where all is ornament the eye and soul grow weary even of beauty and skill.
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Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.
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Even saints are vain, and the greatest man of action has moments of weakness in which he aspires to write a book.
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The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything. We are fragments in infinity and moments in eternity; for such forked atoms to describe the universe, or the Supreme Being, must make the planets tremble with mirth.
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Plato felt, like Voltaire, that monarchy has this advantage over democracy, that in a monarchy the reformer has only to convince one man.
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In every age some men acquire more wealth than befits a man, and use it to spoil their children.
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No religion can hope to win and move the common soul unless it clothes its moral doctrine in a splendor of marvel, legend, and ritual.
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The principle of democracy is freedom, the principle of war is discipline; each requires the absence of the other.
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A philosopher is a dead poet and a dying theologian.
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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.
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Tradition is the voice of time, and time is the medium of selection; a cautious mind will respect their verdict, for only youth knows better than twenty centuries.
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The isles of science and philosophy are everywhere washed by mystic seas. Intellect narrows hope, and only the fortunate can bear it gladly.
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Honesty is the best policy, but that it must be practiced with discrimination.
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The law of every being is self-development; no ambition, no empire, is ever content.
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Individualism in the end destroys the group, but in the interim it stimulates personality, mental exploration, and artistic creation.
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Usually the power of woman rises with the wealth of a society, for when the stomach is satisfied hunger leaves the field to love.
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Exploitation of the weak by the strong is as natural as eating and differs from it only in rapidity; we must expect to find it in every age and under every form of society and government.
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The constitution of man always rewrites the constitutions of states.
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Tradition is the voice of time, and time is the medium of selection; a cautious mind will respect their verdict, for only youth knows better than twenty centuries.
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Every romantic becomes a pessimist when reality impinges upon romance.
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A man's quota of energy seldom allows him to be great in both his life and his seed.
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Self-respect is the backbone of upright conduct.
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Next to bread and woman, in the hierarchy of desire, comes eternal salvation; when the stomach is satisfied, and lust is spent, man spares a little time for God.
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Soldiers depend upon money, money upon power, and power upon soldiers.
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It is refreshing to find a philosopher who is wise enough to be happy.
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Modern improvements in transport and communication have permitted greater wars.
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The constitution of man always rewrites the constitutions of states.
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Youth does not come twice to a man, a nation, a literature, or a language.
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Even saints are vain, and the greatest man of action has moments of weakness in which he aspires to write a book.
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No mind is broad enough to understand, much less to rule, the world.
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In every epoch something is decaying and something is growing.
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Few conditions are more demoralizing than poverty that comes after wealth.
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Woman had domesticated the sheep, the dog, the ass, and the pig; now she domesticated man. Man is woman's last domestic animal, only partially and reluctantly civilized.
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Idealism offends the senses, materialism offends the soul; the one explains everything but the world, the other everything but life.
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In every civilization the time comes when old ways must be re-examined if the society is to readjust itself to irresistible economic change.
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Honesty is the best policy, but that it must be practiced with discrimination.
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In all intellectual ages education stresses knowledge more than character, and produces masses of half-educated people who, uprooted from labor and the land, move about in unplaced discontent like loosened cargo in the ship of state.
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Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.
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When a man covers a vast field many errors may be forgiven him if the result adds to our comprehension of life.
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In every age some men acquire more wealth than befits a man, and use it to spoil their children.
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Plato felt, like Voltaire, that monarchy has this advantage over democracy, that in a monarchy the reformer has only to convince one man.
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No mind is broad enough to understand, much less to rule, the world.
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What increases with civilization is not so much immorality of intent as opportunity of expression.
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Civilization is the union of soil and soul—the resources of the earth transformed by the desire and discipline of men.
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History, like nature, knows only continuity amid change. History makes no leaps.
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Philosophy is a luxury for the few, religion is a consolation for the many.
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Philosophy is a luxury for the few, religion is a consolation for the many.
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No mind is broad enough to understand, much less to rule, the world.
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Men begin by seeking happiness and are content at last with peace.
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Durant first wrote this quote about Ancient Greece:
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The first principle of government is good example; to improve his people the ruler must make himself a model of intelligence and good will.
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Moral reform is the most difficult and delicate branch of statesmanship; few rulers have dared to attempt it; most rulers have left it to hypocrites and saints.
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Civilization does not die, it migrates; it changes its habitat and its dress, but it lives on. The decay of one civilization, as of one individual, makes room for the growth of another.
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Philosophy is the quest for understanding through perspective.
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The first principle of government is good example; to improve his people the ruler must make himself a model of intelligence and good will.
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Idealism offends the senses, materialism offends the soul; the one explains everything but the world, the other everything but life.
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When great men stoop to sentiment the world grows fonder of them; but when sentiment governs policy empires totter.
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