Will Durant Quotes

Quotes about:

• It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

  Will Durant

  Country, Time, People

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (2012). “The Lessons of History”, p.61, Simon and Schuster

  45 Copy quote

• History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.

  Will Durant

  33 Copy quote

• Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day

  Will Durant

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  108 Copy quote

• 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.

  Will Durant

  War, Struggle, Rome

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1944). “The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ, a history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325”

  99 Copy quote

• From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

  Will Durant

  Civilization, Needs, Century

  Will Durant (2011). “The Reformation: The Story of Civilization”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

• The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

  Will Durant

  Political, Acting, Triumph

  Will Durant (1929). “The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny”, Garden City, N.Y. : Garden City Publishing Company

  59 Copy quote

• The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

  Will Durant

  Honesty, Fear, Integrity

  71 Copy quote

• To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.

  Will Durant

  Self, Giving, Meaning Of Life

  21 Copy quote

• If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.

  Will Durant

  Love, Pride, Wish

  Will Durant (1929). “The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny”, Garden City, N.Y. : Garden City Publishing Company

  10 Copy quote

• When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.

  Will Durant

  Liberty, Chaos, Dictatorship

  19 Copy quote

• Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

  Will Durant

  Ignorance, Discovery, Years

  "Books: The Great Gadfly". Time Magazine (review of "The Age of Voltaire" by Will and Ariel Durant), October 8, 1965.

  44 Copy quote

• Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.

  Will Durant

  Tolerance, Certainty, Grows

  Will Durant (1950). “The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization -Christian, Islamic, and Judaic - from Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300”

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Will Durant

  Men, Europe, America

  28 Copy quote

• The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can't be done.

  Will Durant

  Nature, Motivation, People

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• If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.

  Will Durant

  Facts, Squandering, Amazed

  58 Copy quote

• The future never just happened. It was created.

  Will Durant

  Inspirational, Motivational, Future

  68 Copy quote

• There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

  Will Durant

  War, Past, Years

  42 Copy quote

• 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

  Clever, Way, Speak

  "We Have a Right To Be Happy Today". Will Durant's commencement address at the Webb School of Claremont in California, June 7, 1958.

  40 Copy quote

• The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.

  Will Durant

  Real, Character, Individuality

  "The Lessons of History". Book by Will Durant and Ariel Durant, 1968.

  45 Copy quote

• 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.

  Will Durant

  Plato, Home, Thinking

  20 Copy quote

• Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.

  Will Durant

  Forever, Repeats, Doomed

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• It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.

  Will Durant

  Change, Home, Political

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• Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.

  Will Durant

  Dust, Civilization, Earth

  Will Durant (2011). “The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

  32 Copy quote

• Liberty is a product of order.

  Will Durant

  Order, Liberty, Products

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• There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.

  Will Durant

  Religion, Atheism, Example

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (2012). “The Lessons of History”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

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