Quotes from Will Durant

Laplace is reported to have said on his deathbed that science was mere trifling, and that nothing was real but love.

All political philosophy, Spinoza thins, must grow out of a distinction between the natural and the moral order...without law or social organization...might and right were one...The rights of states are now what the rights of individuals used to be (and still often are), that is, they are mights...among men, as mutual need begets mutual aid...passes into a moral order of rights. (Chapter on Spinoza, p.191/543)

Wherever philosophy arises, the moral health of the nation decays.

On his tombstone only three words were necessary:   HERE LIES VOLTAIRE

it is a glorious privilege to be alive. Neither scientific analysis nor a multitude of words will describe

It was even a saying among the philosophers themselves that since learned men had appeared, honest men were nowhere to be found.

When abundance comes, and the danger subsides, social cohesion is lessened, and individualism increases; communism ends where luxury begins.

It is difficult to be enthusiastic about Aristotle, because it was difficult for him to be enthusiastic about anything. His motto is nil admirari - to admire or marvel at nothing.

The farther back we trace the Egyptian language the more affinities it reveals with the Semitic tongues of the Near East.

As the life of a society becomes more complex, and the division of labor differentiates men into diverse occupations and trades, it becomes more and more unlikely that all these services will be equally valuable to the group;

Our states, being ourselves multiplied, are what we are; they write our natures in bolder type, and do our good and evil on an elephantine scale.

It would be better to abandon our overrapid development of the intellect, and to aim rather at training the heart and the affections

because we are human we suppose that all events lead up to man and are designed to subserve his needs. But this is an anthropocentric delusion, like so much of our thinking.

Education does not make a man good; it only makes him clever—usually for mischief. Instinct and feeling are more trustworthy than reason.

The root of the greatest errors in philosophy lies in projecting our human purposes, criteria and preferences into the objective universe.

Philosophy, however, is for the few, whereas poetry is more useful to the people at large.

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man,... cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought.

One of his practical principles was to attend most to those pupils who were of middle ability; the dunces, he said, were beyond all help, and the geniuses would help themselves.

Al reclamar un origen divino y una hegemonía espiritual, la Iglesia se ofreció como tribunal internacional ante el cual todos los gobernantes debían ser moralmente responsables.

Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so "hungry for honey," that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the "protector of the people" rises to supreme power

Bad and good are prejudices which the eternal reality cannot recognize;

He thought everything out carefully before acting; and therefore remained a bachelor all his life long.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

It is not merely probable, it is certain that we shall never find a straight line that is not the shortest distance between two points.