Will Durant

William James Durant (5 November 1885 - 7 November 1981) American historian, philosopher and writer.

Found 15 thoughts of Will Durant

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in time of war.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

I am not against hasty marriages, where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.

History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.

Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Education is the transmission of civilization.

It is an illuminating sign of beauty's generation by desire, that when the object of desire is securely won, the sense of its beauty languishes; few men are philosopher enough to desire what they have, and fewer still can find beauty in what no longer stirs desire.