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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
Cannot
Moralist
Statesman
Statesmen
Afford

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Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity.
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To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.
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The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can't be done.
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Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.
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Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
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The Institutional Church (ecclesia) has killed only two kinds of people: Those who do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and those who do.
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Cultivate your garden. Do not depend upon teachers to educate you... follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony.
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History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age.
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If I were rich I would have many books, and I would pamper myself with bindings bright to the eye and soft to the touch, paper generously opaque, and type such as men designed when printing was very young. I would dress my gods in leather and gold, and burn candles of worship before them at night, and string their names like beads on a string.
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Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day
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History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness.
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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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Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.
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Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty certainty is murderous.
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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.
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A civilization is born Stoic and dies Epicurean.
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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.
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In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry in its decadence, philosophy and logic.
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Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ.
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[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.
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