Quotes from Will Durant

The story of the bondage in Egypt, of the use of the Jews as slaves in great construction enterprises, their rebellion and escape - or emigration - to Asia, has many internal signs of essential truth, mingled, of course, with supernatural interpolations customary in all the historical writings of the ancient East.

Instead of sacking cities and wrecking temples he showed a courteous respect for the deities of the conquered, and contributed to maintain their shrines; even the Babylonians, who had resisted him so long, warmed towards him when they found him preserving their sanctuaries and honoring

The timid weakness of individuals, the insecurity of groups, and the delusion of superiority generated perpetual fear, suspicion, dislike, and contempt of the different, the alien, and the strange.

One proof of the excellence of this amiable woman's character is that all who loved her loved each other, even jealousy and rivalry submitting to the more powerful sentiment with which she inspired them; and I never saw any of those who surrounded her entertain the least ill will among themselves. Let the reader pause a moment in this encomium, and if he can recollect any other woman who deserves it, let him attach himself to her if he would obtain happiness.

Be lavish in your promises," Quintus advised; "men prefer a false promise to a flat refusal. . . . Contrive to get some new scandal aired against your rivals for crime, corruption, or immorality."43

In some way the god had to be appeased and satisfied; for his worshipers had made him in the image and dream of themselves, and he had no great regard for human life, or womanly tears.

The object of philosophy, therefore, is to perceive unity in diversity, mind in matter, and matter in mind; to find the synthesis in which opposites and contradictions meet and merge; to rise to that highest knowledge of universal unity which is the intellectual equivalent of the love of God.

Those who desire immortality must pay for it with their lives.

As long as there is poverty, there will be gods

This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down?

He studied the stars, and guided his caravans across mountains and deserts by tracing his route in the sky.

Since wealth is an order and procedure of production and exchange rather than an accumulation of (mostly perishable) goods, and is a trust (the "credit system") in men and institutions rather than in the intrinsic value of paper money or checks, violent revolutions do not so much redistribute wealth as destroy it.

Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

These steeples, everywhere pointing upward, ignoring despair and lifting hope--these lofty city spires or simple chapels in the hills--they rise at every step from the earth to the sky; in every village of every nation on the globe they challenge doubt and invite weary hearts to consolation. Is it all a vain delusion? Is there nothing beyond life but death, and nothing beyond death but decay? We cannot know, but as long as men suffer, those steeples will remain

Great gaps occur in the history of the art, because most of the early work was ruined by the climate, and much of the remainder was destroyed by Moslem "idol-breakers" from Mahmud to Aurangzeb.

Christianity must be divine since it has lasted 1,700 years despite the fact that it is so full of villainy and nonsense. [Voltaire] shows how almost all ancient peoples had similar myths, and hastily concludes that the myths are thereby proved to have been the inventions of priests: the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool.

In philosophy all truth is old and only error is original.

Man's duty, says the Avesta, is three-fold: "To make him who is an enemy a friend; to make him who is wicked righteous; and to make him who is ignorant learned."76

The politics of the Essays preach a conservatism natural in one who aspired to rule. Bacon wants a strong central power. Monarchy is the best form of government; and usually the efficiency of a state varies with the concentration of power.

Christianity must be divine," he says, in one of his most unmeasured sallies, "since it has lasted 1,700 years despite the fact that it is so full of villainy and nonsense."79 He shows how almost all ancient peoples had similar myths, and hastily concludes that the myths are thereby proved to have been the inventions of priests: "the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool.

The father gets accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son to be on a level with his father, having no shame or fear of his parents…. The teacher fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors…. The old do not like to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they imitate the young….

To rise again - to be the same person that you were - you must have your memory perfectly fresh and present; for it is memory that makes your identity. If your memory be lost, how will you be the same man? Why do mankind flatter themselves that they alone are gifted with a spiritual and immortal principle? Perhaps from their inordinate vanity. I am persuaded that if a peacock could speak he would boast of his soul, and would affirm that it inhabited his magnificent tail.

The man who does not wish to be merely one of the mass only needs to cease to be easy on himself." To have a purpose for which one can be hard upon others, but above all upon one's self; to have a purpose for which one will do almost anything except betray a friend,—that is the final patent of nobility, the last formula of the superman.

When a man is interested in the past he writes history; when he is interested in the future he makes it.