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A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.

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
Moralist
Statesman
Statesmen
Afford
Cannot

More quotes by Will Durant

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That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.
Will Durant
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Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
Will Durant
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Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, the [bankers] know that history is inflationary.
Will Durant
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Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard
Will Durant
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History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.
Will Durant
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If you wish to be loved, be modest if you wish to be admired, be proud if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.
Will Durant
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War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy.
Will Durant
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It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.
Will Durant
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History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.
Will Durant
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Every state begins in compulsion but the habits of obedience become the content of conscience, and soon every citizen thrills with loyalty to the flag. The citizen is right for however the state begins, it soon becomes an indispensable prop to order.
Will Durant
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We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street and Broadway.
Will Durant
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Caesar's armies marched on vegetarian foods.
Will Durant
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Freedom and equality are naturan born enemies.
Will Durant
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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
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There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.
Will Durant
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The laws that Charondas gave to Catana,... A man might divorce his wife, or a wife her husband, said Charondas, but then he or she must not marry anyone younger than the divorced mate.
Will Durant
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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.
Will Durant
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The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history.
Will Durant
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To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
Will Durant
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The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.
Will Durant