Quote

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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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
Giving
Speak
Taxes
Ministers
Aloud
Work
Tell
Poet
Skill
Historians
Make
Truth
Advice
Plays
Emperor
Men
Give
Students
Faults
Govern
People
Anything
Liberty
Praise
Verses
Find
Poor
Seek
Historian
Everything
Free
Lessons
Poets
Grumble
Play
Learn
Skills
Fault
Workmen

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How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.
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Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.
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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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There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
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Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
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There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.
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The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.
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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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No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.
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The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws.
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Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.
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The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
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Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages.
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Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.
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Communism is the opiate of the people.
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When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
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Wherever men do things, other men will arise who will explain to them how things should be done.
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I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process
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When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
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To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
Will Durant