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The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

Will Durant

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Will Durant
Age: 96 †
Born: 1885
Born: November 5
Died: 1981
Died: November 7
Historian
Philosopher
Writer
North Adams
Massachusetts
William James Will Durant
William James Durant
Wish
Fears
Fear
Honesty
Action
Integrity
Character
Minds
Mind
Virtue
Trouble
Think
Acting
Wishes
Thinking
Rather
Hopes
People

More quotes by Will Durant

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The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
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To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
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An emperor knows how to govern when poets are free to make verses, people to act plays, historians to tell the truth, ministers to give advice, the poor to grumble at taxes, students to learn lessons aloud, workmen to praise their skill and seek work, people to speak of anything, and old men to find fault with everything.
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To seek, beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony of things.
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If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.
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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.
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The finger that turns the dial rules the air.
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Science tells us how to heal and how to kill it reduces our death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war but only wisdom - desire coordinated in the light of all experience - can tell us when to heal and when to kill.
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No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.
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For you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrificed in the turbulence of change.
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Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard
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As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.
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As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.
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A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.
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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
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[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.
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Often your face is your autobiography
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Music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of arts.
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There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.
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In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry in its decadence, philosophy and logic.
Will Durant