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
civilization luxury liberty
Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization.
political acting minorities
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
christian rome perspective
Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up. When the classic religions decayed, communistic agitation rose in Athens (430 B.C.), and revolution began in Rome (133 B.C.); when these movements failed, resurrection faiths succeeded, culminating in Christianity; when, in our eighteenth century, Christian belief weakened, communism reappeared. In this perspective the future of religion is secure.
islamic order civilization
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.
ignorance discovery years
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. We teach more by what we are than by what we teach.
philosophy chess fables
It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.
plato home thinking
All that is good in our history is gathered in libraries. At this moment, Plato is down there at the library waiting for us. So is Aristotle. Spinoza is there and so is Kats. Shelly and Byron adn Sam Johnson are there waiting to tell us their magnificent stories. All you have to do is walk in the library door and the great company open their arms to you. They are so happy to see you that they come out with you into the street and to your home. And they do what hardly any friend will-- they are silent when you wish to think.
teacher garden curiosity
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.
civilization needs barbarism
From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.
money eugenics age
There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.
rich
Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
teacher garden joy
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.
knowledge knowledge-and-power liberty
Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.
loyalty order society
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.