Will Durant Quotes

The older Romans used temples as their banks, as we use banks as our temples;

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

مەرگی شارستانییەت ئەو کاتە
دەگات کە گەورەکانی خەڵک،
بە پرسیارە تازەکانی ئەوان،
وڵامی کۆنە دەدەنەوە

إن الفلسفة تبدأ عندما يبدأ الإنسان يتعلم الشك، وخصوصاً الشك في المعتقدات التي يحبها، والعقائد والبديهيات أو الحقائق المقررة التي يؤمن بها ويقدسها.

And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world.

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.

If race or class war divides us into hostile camps, changing political argument into blind hate, one side or the other may overturn the hustings with the rule of the sword. If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all; and a martial government, under whatever charming phrases, will engulf the democratic world.

Nothing in all literature is so depressing as the “Dissertations” of the slave [Epictetus], unless it be the “Meditations” of the Emperor [Marcus Aurelius] ...[after some excerpts from the two books]..... In such passages we feel the proximity of Christianity and its dauntless martyrs; indeed were not the Christian ethic of self-denial, the Christian political ideal of an almost communistic brotherhood of man, and the Christian eschatology of the final conflagration of all the world, fragments of Stoic doctrine floating on the stream of thought? In Epictetus the Greco-Roman soul has lost its paganism, and is ready for a new faith".

How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.

"ان كتاب "العالم كارادة حرة" لشوبنهور خالي من
تعقيدات كانت
وتشويش هيجل
وهندسة سبينوزا"

When the universe has crushed him man will still be nobler than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and of its victory the universe knows nothing.

It has been the one song of those who thirst after absolute power that the interest of the state requires that its affairs should be conducted in secret... But the more such arguments disguise themselves under the mask of public welfare, the more oppressive is the slavery to which they will lead... Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. 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.

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

Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others.

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing 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 the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks of the river.