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Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.

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
Beliefs
Begins
Particularly
Philosophy
Dogmas
Doubt
Axioms
Belief
Cherished
Learns
Dogma

More quotes by Will Durant

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Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day
Will Durant
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Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.
Will Durant
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Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, the [bankers] know that history is inflationary.
Will Durant
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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.
Will Durant
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History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.
Will Durant
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There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.
Will Durant
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As knowledge grew, fear decreased men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming it.
Will Durant
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Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?
Will Durant
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We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.
Will Durant
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In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.
Will Durant
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How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.
Will Durant
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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.
Will Durant
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Science tells us how to heal and how to kill it reduces our death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war but only wisdom - desire coordinated in the light of all experience - can tell us when to heal and when to kill.
Will Durant
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Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
Will Durant
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It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
Will Durant
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Time sanctifies everything even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
Will Durant
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Often your face is your autobiography
Will Durant
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So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade.
Will Durant
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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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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