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In the last analysis civilization is based upon the food supply.

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
Based
Civilization
Food
Lasts
Last
Upon
Supply
Analysis

More quotes by Will Durant

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Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.
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The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions.
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Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
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Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.
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If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.
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If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
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There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.
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Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.
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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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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.
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Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.
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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.
Will Durant
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If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all.
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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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A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.
Will Durant
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As long as there is poverty there will be gods.
Will Durant
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Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
Will Durant
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Drunkenness was in good repute in England till Bloody Mary frowned upon it it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not being quite so cold.
Will Durant
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Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals
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No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.
Will Durant