Quotes from Will Durant

It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.

Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.

Death like style is the removal of rubbish.

Can a civilization hold together if man abandons his faith in God?

India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.

If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.

Education is the transmission of civilization.

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.

The individual succumbs, but he does not die if he has left something to mankind.

So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.

We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty; but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.

Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.

Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational; and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.

I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality.