Will Durant Quotes

يقول شوبنهاور: إن كل الملاحم التمثيلية لا يسعها إلا أن تصوّر نزاعاً وجهداً وقتالاً من أجل السعادة ولكنها لا تحتمل السعادة نفسها أبداً. وهي تسير بأبطالها إلى آلاف المخاطر والمصاعب للوصول إلى الهدف المنشود، وبمجرد أن يبلغ هؤلاء الأبطال أهدافهم تسارع القصة إلى إسدال الستار إذ لم يعد لها شيء بعد ذلك لتظهره سوى أن الهدف اللامع البرّاق الذي توقع البطل أن يجد فيه السعادة قد خيّب أمله، وأنه لم يكن بعد بلوغه أسعد حالاً منه قبل بلوغه.

Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.

Great organizers, as much as inevitable slaves, tend to stoic moods: it is difficult to be either master or servant if one is sensitive.

Normally and generally men are judged by their ability to produce — except in war, when they are ranked according to their ability to destroy.

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

Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.

And again, though we cannot prove, we feel, that we are deathless. We perceive that life is not like those dramas so beloved by the people — in which every villain is punished, and every act of virtue meets with its reward; we learn anew every day that the wisdom of the serpent fares better here than the gentleness of the dove, and that any thief can triumph if he steals enough. If mere worldly utility and expediency were the justification of virtue, it would not be wise to be too good. And yet, knowing all this, having it flung into our faces with brutal repetition, we still feel the command to righteousness, we know that we ought to do the inexpedient good.

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.

the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

The tragedy of life is that it gives us wisdom only when it has stolen youth. Si jeunesse savait, et vieillesse pouvait! — “If youth knew how, and old age could!

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

The form of Christianity that developed in Europe and later spread to America and the rest of the world was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.

When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.

The invention and spread of contraceptives is the proximate cause of our changing morals. The old moral code restricted sexual experience to marriage, because copulation could not be effectively separated from parentage, and parentage could be made responsible only through marriage. But to-day the dissociation of sex from reproduction has created a situation unforeseen by our fathers. All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor; and the moral code of the future will have to take account of these new facilities which invention has placed at the service of ancient desires.

Here and everywhere is the struggle for existence, life inextricably enmeshed with war. All life living at the expense of life, every organism eating other organisms forever.