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Civilization is not inherited it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

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
Dies
Interrupted
History
Earned
Would
Savages
Generation
Civilization
Generations
Transmission
Learned
Anew
Century
Inherited

More quotes by Will Durant

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If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
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Which is now a more hopeful statement than Swift intended it to be.
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The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.
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When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
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Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.
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The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions.
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Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
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Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals
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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.
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In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.
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So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade.
Will Durant
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Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution' - this was left for lesser minds.
Will Durant
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Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.
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As long as there is poverty there will be gods.
Will Durant
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Men decided that it was better to pay taxes than to fight among themselves better to pay tribute to one magnificent robber than to bribe them all.
Will Durant
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We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.
Will Durant
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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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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
Will Durant
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The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.
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