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
song strong fall
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.
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.
strong war mean
The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty; but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
dishonest ill integrity others praising speak
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.
answer belief creative god history mean nature negative reluctant support supreme vitality
Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative
civilization order liberty
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.
character technology opportunity
The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization.
conservative radical valuable
The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.
men civilization earth
Man, not the earth, makes civilization.
character destiny personality
If you have character, endeavor, personality, courage and the capacity for concentrated labor, you will do what is your destiny – and, perhaps, even do it well.
science law lessons
The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history.
past understanding action
The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.
trying pages fool
Only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.
men civilised
No man who is in a hurry is quite civilised.