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The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history.

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
South
Summary
Civilization
Spreads
History
Civilizations
Ruins
North
Conquer
Creates
Borrows
Spread
Conquers

More quotes by Will Durant

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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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Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?
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For you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrificed in the turbulence of change.
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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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The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
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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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To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.
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Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
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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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Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
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The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.
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When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
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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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Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
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To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.
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It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.
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Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.
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Liberty is a product of order.
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We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.
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Cultural creation... begins where chaos and insecurity end.
Will Durant