Will Durant
Will Durant
William James "Will" Durantwas an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant, and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy, described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy"...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 November 1885
tyrants today rebel
Today's rebel is tomorrow's tyrant.
men civilised
No man who is in a hurry is quite civilised.
trying pages fool
Only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.
past understanding action
The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.
science law lessons
The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history.
character destiny personality
If you have character, endeavor, personality, courage and the capacity for concentrated labor, you will do what is your destiny – and, perhaps, even do it well.
character technology opportunity
The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization.
war struggle rome
A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.
good-things good-communication spoken-word
Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.
concentration-of-wealth numbers progressive-society
In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.
justice social-justice teach
We teach more by what we are than by what we teach.
honesty fear integrity
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
philosophy giving
Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
bitter gentle
Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.