Quotes from Will Durant

Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought? There is no real philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

Every philosopher should be an athlete. If he is not, let us suspect his philosophy.

Babylonian mathematics rested on a division of the circle into 360 degrees

Leonardo called "the noblest pleasure, the joy of understanding.

Astronomy was the special science of the Babylonians, for which they were famous throughout the ancient world.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

As the Moslems advanced into India native culture receded farther and farther south; and towards the end of these Middle Ages the finest achievements of Hindu civilization were those of the Deccan.

From whatever angle we approach our eternal political problem we monotonously reach the same conclusion: that the community should determine the ends to be pursued, but that only experts should select and apply the means; that choice should be democratically spread, but that office should be rigidly reserved for the equipped and winnowed best. (p.89/543)

Barbarism, like the jungle, does not die out, but only retreats behind the barriers that civilization has thrown up against it, and waits there always to reclaim that to which civilization has temporarily laid claim.

Every planet was a god, interested and vital in the affairs of men: Jupiter was Marduk, Mercury was Nabu, Mars was Nergal, the sun was Shamash, the moon was Sin, Saturn was Ninib, Venus was Ishtar.

Knowledge is power, not mere argument or ornament; it is not an opinion to be held... but a work to be done; and I... am laboring to lay the foundation not of any sect or doctrine, but of utility and power.

And indeed, great men speak to us only so far as we have ears and souls to hear them; only so far as we have in us the roots, at least, of that which flowers out in them.

It is true that, if the affections or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept" of the Pythagoreans "is good, Optimum lege suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo,"—choose the best; custom will make it pleasant and easy.35 For "custom is the principal magistrate of man's life."36

Si los conocimientos agrícolas existentes se aplicasen en todas partes, el planeta podría alimentar al doble de su población actual.

They measured time by a clepsydra or water-clock, and a sun-dial, and these seem to have been not merely developed but invented by them.

the most heroic symphony is a judicious combination of puffing, plucking, scraping, and beating.

They divided the year into twelve lunar months, six having thirty days, six twenty-nine; and as this made but 354 days in all, they added a thirteenth month occasionally to harmonize the calendar with the seasons

science can get along with talent, but art requires genius.

Sometimes," said Thoreau, "as I drift idly on Walden Pond, I cease to live and begin to be.

The division of our month into four weeks, of our clock into twelve hours (instead of twenty-four), of our hour into sixty minutes, and of our minute into sixty seconds, are unsuspected Babylonian vestiges in our contemporary world.XVI

How little you know the age you live in, says a god in Ovid, if you fancy that honey is sweeter than cash in hand.

Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

The secret of peace is not to make our achievements equal to our desires, but to lower our desires to the level of our achievements. "If what you have seems insufficient to you," said the Roman Stoic Seneca (d. 65 A.D.), "then, though you possess the world, you will yet be miserable.

They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.134