Quotes from Will Durant

The truest vision ever had of God came, perhaps, here.

The religion of Assyria, like its language, its science and its arts, was imported from Sumeria and Babylonia, with occasional adaptations to the needs of a military state.

but trial by combat was unknown.

So philosophy purifies the will. But philosophy is to be understood as experience and thought, not as mere reading or passive study.

Bracelets, necklaces, anklets, finger-rings and ear-rings made the women of Sumeria, as recently in America, show-windows of their husbands' prosperity.10

Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it.

time as a sense of before and after, or a measurement of motion, is of course subjective, and highly relative; but a tree will age, wither and decay whether or not the lapse of time is measured or perceived.

The distinctive feature of the unintelligent man is the hastiness and absoluteness of his opinions; the scientist is slow to believe, and never speaks without modification.

What immortality means to me now is that we are all parts of a whole, cells in the body of life; that the death of the part is the life of the whole; and that though as individuals we pass away, yet the whole is made forever different by what we have done and been.

Bacon was not above the age in this matter; and his tendency to keep his expenditure several years in advance of his income forbade him the luxury of scruples.

He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully."88 "Minds are conquered not by arms but by greatness of soul."89

the fine or composition-money for killing a king was 30,000 thrimsas ($13,000);

In the midst of unprecedented learning popular ignorance flourished, and chose its exemplars to rule the great cities of the world.

that I think many things with the clearest conviction, . . . which I never have the courage to say; but I will never say anything which I do not think.

Man's sins may be the relics of his rise rather than the stigmata of his fall.

The cleverest defenders of a faith are its greatest enemies; for their subtleties engender doubt and stimulate the mind.

But if the government itself is a chaos and an absurdity, if it rules without helping, and commands without leading,—how can we persuade the individual, in such a state, to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good?

Passion without reason is blind, reason without passion is dead. Thought should not lack the heat of desire, nor desire the light of thought.

Every civilization is a fruit from the sturdy tree of barbarism, and falls at the greatest distance from its trunk.

virtue is not news, and virtuous men, like happy nations, have no history.

A right is not a gift of God or nature but a privilege which it is good for the group that the individual should have.

Let me have seven hours a week, and I will make a scholar and a philosopher out of you; in four years, you shall be as well educated as any new-fledged Doctor of Philosophy in the land.

How can we understand man if we do not understand religion?

Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power" (557).