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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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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
Almost
Rich
Indifferently
History
Instances
Made
Selection
Conclusion
Instance
Case
Cases

More quotes by Will Durant

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Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.
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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We teach more by what we are than by what we teach.
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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When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
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.
Will Durant
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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.
Will Durant
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Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ.
Will Durant
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The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.
Will Durant
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The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.
Will Durant
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To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.
Will Durant
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History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.
Will Durant
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We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.
Will Durant
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Time sanctifies everything even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
Will Durant
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It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.
Will Durant
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Can a civilization hold together if man abandons his faith in God?
Will Durant
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Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
Will Durant
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Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.
Will Durant
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So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
Will Durant
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Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
Will Durant