Will Durant quotes - page 2

Will Durant was an American historian, philosopher, and writer, renowned for his works on the history of civilization. His most famous achievement is "The Story of Civilization," co-authored with his wife, Ariel Durant. He dedicated his life to making history accessible and engaging for general readers. Here are 140 of his quotes:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. (Will Durant)
Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn. View quote
Will Durant
I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality. View quote
Will Durant
Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day. View quote
Will Durant
On the maturation of a woman* "She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore." View quote
Will Durant
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. View quote
Will Durant
On young love* "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." View quote
Will Durant
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.' View quote
Will Durant
The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God. View quote
Will Durant
So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him. View quote
Will Durant
When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship. (Will Durant)
Grow strong, my comrade ... that you may stand Unshaken when I fall; that I may know The shattered fragments of my song will come At last to finer melody in you; That I may tell my heart that you begin Where passing I leave off, and fathom more. View quote
Will Durant
History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all. View quote
Will Durant
Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die. View quote
Will Durant
In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line. View quote
Will Durant
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. View quote
Will Durant
Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle. View quote
Will Durant
Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous. View quote
Will Durant
How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself. View quote
Will Durant
In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever. View quote
Will Durant
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... (Will Durant)
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. View quote
Will Durant
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. View quote
Will Durant
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. View quote
Will Durant
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. View quote
Will Durant

Will Durant

Will Durant - Image
Photo: Bill Murphy, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0
Occupation: American Historian
Born: November 5, 1885
Died: November 7, 1981
Quotes count: 140
Wikipedia: Will Durant

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