Picture of William Shakespeare

Will Durant Quotes

List of quotations and sayings by the american historian Will Durant on topics like people, mind, freedom

  • Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

    — Will Durant on education
    14
  • The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes, rather than their minds.

    — Will Durant on mind
    11
  • Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

    — Will Durant on discipline
    9
  • Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

    — Will Durant on knowledge
    8
  • Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.

    — Will Durant on equality
    7
  • What are the best Will Durant quotes?
    Try the Top 10 list of Will Durant quotes and images

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

    — Will Durant on history
    7
  • Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

    — Will Durant on certainty
    6
  • To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

    — Will Durant on art
    5
  • Nothing is new except arrangement.

    — Will Durant on plagiarism
    4
  • Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

    — Will Durant on actions
    4
  • No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.

    — Will Durant on haste
    4
  • Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.

    — Will Durant on teaching
    4
  • About Will Durant

    Name Will Durant
    Quotes 33 quotations
    Nationality American
    Profession Historian
    Birthday October 16
    About William James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for the 11-volume The Story of Civilization, written in collaboration with his wife Ariel and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for his book, The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, which was considered "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy.
    Top topics people, mind, freedom, civilization, education
  • The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on.

    It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.

    — Will Durant on admit
    3
  • Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

    — Will Durant on morals
    3
  • Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

    — Will Durant on government
    2
  • Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.

    — Will Durant on inflation
    2
  • Related Authors

    • Anita Brookner
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson
    • Henry Ford
    • Hannah Arendt
    • Alexis de Tocqueville
    • Edward Gibbon
    • Dr. Seuss
    • Lord Acton
    • Sallust
    • Henry Adams
    • Abraham Lincoln
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Tacitus
    • Herodotus
    • James A. Froude
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.

    Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.

    — Will Durant on clever
    2
  • There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

    — Will Durant on communism
    1
  • 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.

    — Will Durant on answers
    1
  • It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

    — Will Durant on patriotism
    1
  • When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty.

    — Will Durant on order
    1
  • We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street an Broadway.

    — Will Durant on freedom
    1
  • Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old.

    — Will Durant on prejudice
    0
  • The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

    — Will Durant on acting
    0
  • We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street and Broadway.

    — Will Durant on broadway
    0
  • The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.

    — Will Durant on compared
    0
  • Education is the transmission of civilization.

    — Will Durant on education
    0
  • The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

    — Will Durant on hope
    0
  • If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

    — Will Durant on anarchist
    0
  • In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order.

    I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.

    — Will Durant on liberty
    0
  • 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.

    — Will Durant on centuries
    0
  • 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.The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.

    — Will Durant on civilization
    0
  • The family is the nucleus of civilization.

    — Will Durant on family
    0
  • Related Topics

    • education
    • progressive
    • discovery
    • ignorance
    • mind
    • trouble
    • people
    • hopes
    • fears
    • wishes
    • minds
    • discipline
    • tired
    • mothers
    • find
    • spanking
    • takes
    • time
    • reasoning
    • penetrates
    • sooner
    • seat
    • memory
    • knowledge
    • eye
    • desire
    • pilot
    • soul
    • equality
    • nature
    • read
    • declaration
    • independence
    • continues
    • make

Quotlr helps you to improve your life, to achieve inner peace and happiness by reading motivational quotes. No matter if you're doing a research or just exploring sayings by famous people, please check our Privacy Policy

2019 © Quotlr.com