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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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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
Fight
Bribe
Fighting
Robbers
Society
Tribute
Better
Magnificent
Men
Taxes
Decided
Among
Pay
Robber

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Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old.
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When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
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The future never just happened. It was created.
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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.
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Civilizations come and go they conquer the earth and crumble into dust but faith survives every desolation.
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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.
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There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.
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India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.
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The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can't be done.
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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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Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
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Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
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Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever.
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
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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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Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.
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The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.
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Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.
Will Durant
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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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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