Quote

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

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
Learns
Dogma
Beliefs
Begins
Particularly
Philosophy
Dogmas
Doubt
Axioms
Belief
Cherished

More quotes by Will Durant

Image
Liberty is a product of order.
Will Durant
Image
History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age.
Will Durant
Image
Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition, and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when the works of our reason have passed away.
Will Durant
Image
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
Image
Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ.
Will Durant
Image
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.
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
War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy.
Will Durant
Image
To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
Will Durant
Image
Human progress having reached a high level through respect for the liberty and dignity of men, it has become desirable to re-affirm these evident truths
Will Durant
Image
Progress is the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form and will. It need not be continuous to be real.
Will Durant
Image
Continue to express your dissent and your needs, but remember to remain civilized, for you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrified in the turbulence of change.
Will Durant
Image
So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him.
Will Durant
Image
Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game
Will Durant
Image
To seek, beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony of things.
Will Durant
Image
As knowledge grew, fear decreased men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming it.
Will Durant
Image
Which is now a more hopeful statement than Swift intended it to be.
Will Durant
Image
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.
Will Durant
Image
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
Will Durant
Image
The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions.
Will Durant