Quotes from Will Durant

Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically

Science gives man ever greater powers but less significance. It gives him better tools with less purposes. It is silent on origins, values, and ultimate aims. It gives life and history no meaning or worth that is not canceled by time and death.

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing, 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 philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

There can be no victory over the ills of life until the will has been utterly subordinated to knowledge and intelligence.

Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. A cynic remarked that "you mustn't enthrone ignorance just because there is so much of it." However, ignorance is not long enthroned, for it lends itself to manipulation by the forces that mold public opinion. It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that "you can't fool all the people all the time," but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

bene vixit qui bene latuit.

Law is injustice codified; it protects the idle rich against the exploited poor,26 and adds a new evil—lawyers.27

Many simple peoples feared the exceptional individual as a disintegrating force; there is a Chinese proverb that "the great man is a public misfortune.

Vanity increases with age.

Only lunatics can be completely original

If you do not want to commit suicide always have something to do. -Voltaire

Perhaps, within these limits, we can learn enough from history to bear reality patiently, and to respect one another's delusions.

da capo ad nauseam?

Government and History

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. We teach more by what we are than by what we teach.

I am exceedingly anxious to meet and talk with you, whether you think yourself one of His works, or a particle drawn, of necessity, from eternal and necessary matter. Whatever you are, you are a worthy part of that great whole which I do not understand.82

The Eskimos believed that the Europeans had come to Greenland to learn manners and virtues.

One work of genius is worth a thousand commentaries.

Truth generally lies in the coördination of antagonistic opinions.

To be happy means to be self-sufficient.

says a fine Greek adage, is the gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.)

I dealt with so recklessly some years ago in my books Philosophy and the Social Problem (1917), The Story of Philosophy (1926), Transition (1927), The Mansions (or Pleasures) of Philosophy (1929), and On the Meaning of Life (1932). I know that life is in its basis a mystery; a river flowing from an unseen source and in its development an infinite subtlety; a "dome of many-colored glass," too complex for thought, much less for utterance.

And finally there must be education—some technique, however primitive, for the transmission of culture. Whether through imitation, initiation or instruction, whether through father or mother, teacher or priest, the lore and heritage of the tribe—its language and knowledge, its morals and manners, its technology and arts—must be handed down to the young, as the very instrument through which they are turned from animals into men.