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Will Durant
63 quotes
“Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Teachers: The Essence of the Centuries", Time magazine, 13 August 1965
“Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When asked, at the age of 92, if he could summarize the lessons of history into a single sentence. As quoted in "Durants on History from the Ages, with Love," by Pam Proctor, Parade (6 August 1978) p. 12. Durant is quot…
“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: We Have a Right To Be Happy Today, commencement address at the Webb School of Claremont, California (7 June 1958)
“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What is Civilization?" Ladies' Home Journal, LXIII (January, 1946)
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science — problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great organizers, as much as inevitable slaves, tend to stoic moods: it is difficult to be either master or servant if one is sensitive.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[after quoting from Lucretius] In the face of warfare and inevitable death, there is no wisdom but in ataraxia, “to look on all things with a mind at peace"." Here, clearly, the old pagan joy of life is gone, and an almost exotic spirit touches a broken lyre. History, which is nothing if not humorous, was never so facetious as when she gave to this abstemious and epic pessimist the name of Epicurean.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both Stoicism and Epicureanism — the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure — were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved; precisely as the stoicism of Schopenhauer and the despondent epicureanism of Renan were in the nineteenth century the symbols of a shattered revolution and a broken France.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It might have been supposed that the building of 30,000 miles of railways would have brought a measure of prosperity to India. But these railways were built not for India but for England; not for the benefit of the Hindu, but for the purposes of the British army and British trade... The railroads are entirely in European hands, and the Government refuse to appoint even one Hindu to the Railway Board. The railways lose money year after year, and are helped by the Government out of the revenues of the people. All the loses are borne by the people, all the gains are gathered by the trader.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“British rule in India is the most sordid and criminal exploitation of one nation by another in all recorded history. I propose to show that England has year by year been bleeding India to the point of death, and that self-government of India by the Hindus could not within any reasonable probability, have worse results than the present form of alien domination.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the British came there was, throughout India, a system of communal schools, managed by the village communities. The agents of the East India Company destroyed these village communities, and took steps to replace the schools; even today, after a century of effort to restore them, they stand at only 66% of their number a hundred years ago. Hence, the 93 % illiteracy of India. (source: The Case for India - By Will Durant Simon and Schuster, New York. 1930 p.44).”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human progress having reached a high level through respect for the liberty and dignity of men, it has become desirable to re-affirm these evident truths:”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To all Christian governments Christianity was not a rule of means but a means of rule; Christ was for the people, Machiavelli was preferred by the kings. The state in some measure had civilized man, but who would civilize the state?”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1792 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. IV : The Convention: September 21, 1792 - October 26, 1795, Part V : The Reign of Terror: September 17, 1793 - July 28, 1794, § 4 : The Revolution Eats Its Children
“Children and fools speak the truth; and somehow they find happiness in their sincerity.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“See him, the newborn, dirty but marvelous, ridiculous in actuality, infinite in possibility, capable of that ultimate miracle, growth.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is that which is discontent, which struggles and seeks, which suffers and creates.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Childhood may be defined as the age of play; therefore some children are never young, and some adults are never old.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is as young as the risks he takes.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness is the free play of the instincts, and so is youth.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us ask the Gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than consuming them.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Youth is learning to read (which is all that one learns in school), and is learning where and how to find what he may later need to know (which is the best of the arts that he acquires in college). Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The principle of the family was mutual aid; but the principle of society is competition, the struggle for existence, the elimination of the weak and the survival of the strong.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here is a fulfillment of long centuries of civilization and culture; here, in romantic love, more than the triumph of thought or the victories of power is the topmost reach of human beings.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom, if it were young, would cherish love, nursing it with devotion, deepening it with sacrifice, vitalizing with parentage, making all things subordinate to it till the end. Even though it consumes us in its service and overwhelms us with tragedy, even though it breaks us down with separations, let it be first. How can it matter what price we pay for love?”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Middle age begins with marriage; for then work and responsibility replace carefree play, passion surrenders to the limitations of social order, and poetry yields to prose.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As we find a place in the economic world the rebellion of youth subsides; we disapprove of earthquakes when our feet are on the earth. We forget then the radicalism then in a gentle liberalism — which is radicalism softened with the consciousness of a bank account.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man is as old as his arteries, and as young as his ideas.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here and everywhere is the struggle for existence, life inextricably enmeshed with war. All life living at the expense of life, every organism eating other organisms forever.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is that which can hold a purpose for three thousand years and never yield. The individual fails, but life succeeds. The individual is foolish, but life holds in its blood and seed the wisdom of generations. The individual dies, but life, tireless and undiscourageble, goes on, wondering, longing, planning, trying, mounting, longing.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Space, subjectively, is the coexistence of perceptions — perceiving two objects at once.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time, subjectively, is the conscious sequence of perceptions.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By mind I mean the totality of perceptions, memories and ideas in an organism.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sensation is the feeling of an external stimulus or an internal condition.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature. In the inexhaustible activity of the atom, in the endless resourcefulness of plants, in the teeming fertility of animals, in the hunger and movement of infants, in the laughter and play of children, in the love and devotion of youth, in the restless ambition of fathers and the lifelong sacrifice of mothers, in the undiscourageable researches of scientists and the sufferings of genius, in the crucifixion of prophets and the martyrdom of saints — in all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation. I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process... I became almost reconciled to mortality, knowing that my spirit would survive me enshrined in a fairer mold... and that my little worth would somehow be preserved in the heritage of men. In a measure the Great Sadness was lifted from me, and, where I had seen omnipresent death, I saw now everywhere the pageant and triumph of life.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Transition (1927)
“Surely, the time has come for the intellectuals, the liberals, and the radicals of the world to speak out about this new slavery, to call it clearly and bluntly what it is. For it can no longer be doubted that in this dictatorship of the politicians is to be found every abuse which liberals and radicals have denounced in their own society for generations. . . . the Soviet has allowed it people to starve by the thousands. . . . It has choked all competition, and made itself a monopoly of monopolies; it has restored serfdom, conscription of labor, and indentured servitude among a people that has recently liberated itself by revolution and civil war, from these feudal chains; . . . it has kept wages low and labor intense, it has made democracy in the factory only a sham; it has herded and regimented its people like cattle. It has pitilessly industrialized its women under the pretense of emancipating them; it has crowded the population into dingy quarters, and offered every discouragement to the creation of homes. . . . . It is stifled the growth of democracy, and has centralized power into dictatorship of fanatics and machines; it has waged a class war against the peasants, tradesmen, and mental workers; . . . there is no opportunity for the expression of the public will; . . . it has oppressed with unsurpassed barbarity men and women guilty of no other crime than the prosperity attendant upon enterprise, industry, intelligence, and thrift; it has refused to the rights of habeas corpus, of trial by jury, of equality before the law; it has sent it secret police into millions of homes; . . . it has terrorized the public with marching armies, secret police, merciless penalties, and a million spies. It has deported or shot hundreds of thousands of men and women solely for political heresy and non-conformance. It has subjected to censorship every drama and every book, even every opera; it has prostituted the press, the radio and the stage . . . It has suppressed all freedom of speech or assembly, and in effect has raised a thousand obstacles against the freedom of worship and belief. . . Slavery, barbarism and desolation—these fundamentally, despite a thousand minor virtues, is what Russia is today.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Tragedy of Russia: Impressions from a brief visit , New York, NY, Simon and Schuster (1933) pp. 150-54
“Most of our literature and social philosophy after 1850 was the voice of freedom against authority, of the child against the parent, of the pupil against the teacher. Through many years I shared in that individualistic revolt. I do not regret it; it is the function of youth to defend liberty and innovation, of the old to defend order and tradition, and of middle age to find a middle way. But now that I too am old, I wonder whether the battle I fought was not too completely won. Let us say humbly but publicly that we resent corruption in politics, dishonesty in business, faithlessness in marriage, pornography in literature, coarseness in language, chaos in music, meaninglessness in art.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Second Sexual Revolution”, Time magazine, (24 January 1964)
“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Gentle Philosopher" (2006) by John Little at the Will Durant Foundation
“Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts — between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Gentle Philosopher" (2006) by John Little at Will Durant Foundation
“The invention and spread of contraceptives is the proximate cause of our changing morals. The old moral code restricted sexual experience to marriage, because copulation could not be effectively separated from parentage, and parentage could be made responsible only through marriage. But to-day the dissociation of sex from reproduction has created a situation unforeseen by our fathers. All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor; and the moral code of the future will have to take account of these new facilities which invention has placed at the service of ancient desires.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Our Changing Morals, in The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny (1929), Ch. 5. p. 119
“I know how unfashionable it is now to acknowledge in life or history any genius loftier than ourselves. Our democratic dogma has leveled not only all voters but all leaders; we delight to show that living geniuses are only mediocrities, and that dead ones are myths. … Since it is contrary to good manners to exalt ourselves, we achieve the same result by slyly indicating how inferior are the great men of the earth. In some of us, perhaps, it is a noble and merciless asceticism, which would root out of our hearts the last vestige of worship and adoration, lest the old gods should return and terrify us again. For my part, I cling to this final religion, and discover in it a content and stimulus more lasting than came from the devotional ecstasies of youth.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002) edited by John Little, Ch. 1 : The Shameless Worship of Heroes