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[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.

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
Assures
Civilizations
Apathy
Decay
Civilization
Quite
Leisurely

More quotes by Will Durant

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In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome.
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Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.
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We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street and Broadway.
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Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.
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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.
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When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
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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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Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, the [bankers] know that history is inflationary.
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Liberty is a luxury of security the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization.
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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.
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Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
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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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For you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrificed in the turbulence of change.
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To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.
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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
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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.
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To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
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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.
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Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
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Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
Will Durant