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Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.

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
Suffered
Gentle
Bitter
Become
Much

More quotes by Will Durant

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When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
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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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We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive redistribution.
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A civilization is born Stoic and dies Epicurean.
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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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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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Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
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The finger that turns the dial rules the air.
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In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.
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Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.
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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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When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
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There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.
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Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.
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The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West it is whether men can bear to live without God.
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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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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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Even when repressed, inequality grows only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.
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Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever.
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The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions.
Will Durant