Will Durant Quotes - Page 3

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.

All that is good in our history is gathered in libraries. At this moment, Plato is down there at the library waiting for us. So is Aristotle. Spinoza is there and so is Kats. Shelly and Byron adn Sam Johnson are there waiting to tell us their magnificent stories. All you have to do is walk in the library door and the great company open their arms to you. They are so happy to see you that they come out with you into the street and to your home. And they do what hardly any friend will-- they are silent when you wish to think.

As knowledge grew, fear decreased; men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming it.

The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.

Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

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

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.

The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.

To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.

Continue to express your dissent and your needs, but remember to remain civilized, for you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrified in the turbulence of change.

In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

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

Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years.

Cultivate your garden. Do not depend upon teachers to educate you... follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony.

Men decided that it was better to pay taxes than to fight among themselves; better to pay tribute to one magnificent robber than to bribe them all.

There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.

Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

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

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.