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
history rich cases
History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.
wise men banking
Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard
strong struggle thinking
What if it is for life's sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.
historical christ found
Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ.
night government hands
We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.
past rely-upon police
The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.
writing goodness dare
Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?
religious father house
The failure of the reformation to capture France had left for the Frenchmen no half-way house between infallibility and infidelity; and while the intellect of Germany and England moved leisurely in the lines of religious evolution, the mind of France leaped from the hot faith which had massacred the Huguenots to cold hostility with which La Mettrie, Helvetius, Holbach, and Diderot turned upon the religion of the fathers.
civilization dust earth
Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.
past found flourishing
There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.
enemy unions utopia
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.
country europe roles
So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade.
hunting blood games
Hunting is now to most of us a game, whose relish seems based upon some mystic remembrance, in the blood, of ancient days when to hunter as well as hunted it was a matter of life and death.
nature motivation people
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.