Will Durant Quotes

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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

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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

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

Will Durant

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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”

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

Will Durant

Liberty, Chaos, Dictatorship

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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.

Will Durant

Men, He Man, Manage

Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1968). “The Lessons of History”

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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.

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

Will Durant

Self, Giving, Meaning Of Life

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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

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Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard

Will Durant

Wise, Men, Banking

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

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

Will Durant

War, Past, Years

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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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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

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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.

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When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.

Will Durant

Liberty, Dictatorship, License

Will Durant (2014). “The Complete Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage, Life of Greece, Caesar and Christ, Age of Faith, Renaissance, Age of Reason Begins, Age of Louis XIV, Age of Voltaire, Rousseau and Revolution, Age of Napoleon, Reformation”, p.1983, Simon and Schuster

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

Will Durant

Forever, Repeats, Doomed

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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

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The future never just happened. It was created.

Will Durant

Inspirational, Motivational, Future

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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

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Born: November 5, 1885
Died: November 7, 1981
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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