Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Will Durant

Image
Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
Will Durant
Image
Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.
Will Durant
Image
History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.
Will Durant
Image
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.
Will Durant
Image
Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.
Will Durant
Image
There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.
Will Durant
Image
If I were rich I would have many books, and I would pamper myself with bindings bright to the eye and soft to the touch, paper generously opaque, and type such as men designed when printing was very young. I would dress my gods in leather and gold, and burn candles of worship before them at night, and string their names like beads on a string.
Will Durant
Image
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
Will Durant
Image
I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets.
Will Durant
Image
Time sanctifies everything even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
Will Durant
Image
In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.
Will Durant
Image
There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.
Will Durant
Image
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.
Will Durant
Image
Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals
Will Durant
Image
Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
Will Durant
Image
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.
Will Durant
Image
When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
Will Durant
Image
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.
Will Durant
Image
Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.
Will Durant
Image
History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age.
Will Durant