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Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

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
Tends
Excess
Principle
Basic
Principles
Form
Government
Every
Perish

More quotes by Will Durant

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Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
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A cat has a reputation to protect. If it had a halo, it would be worn cocked to one side.
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Christianity did not destroy paganism it adopted it.
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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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Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution' - this was left for lesser minds.
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India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.
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A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.
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Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.
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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.
Will Durant
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Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
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Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.
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Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
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To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
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Often your face is your autobiography
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To seek, beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony of things.
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Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game
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In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome.
Will Durant
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So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him.
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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.
Will Durant
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by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them
Will Durant