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The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws.

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
Freedom
Wealth
Morals
Natural
Results
Liberalism
History
Economy
Concentration
Economic
Factors
Recurs
Politics
Rate
Varies
Law
Result
Permitted
Moral
Laws
Regularly
Ability
Equal
Vary

More quotes by Will Durant

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In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
Will Durant
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The laws that Charondas gave to Catana,... A man might divorce his wife, or a wife her husband, said Charondas, but then he or she must not marry anyone younger than the divorced mate.
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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.
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In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.
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Often your face is your autobiography
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History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.
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If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
Will Durant
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We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive redistribution.
Will Durant
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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
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If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all.
Will Durant
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Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
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If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
Will Durant
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We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street and Broadway.
Will Durant
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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
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Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals
Will Durant
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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
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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.
Will Durant
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When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
Will Durant
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There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.
Will Durant
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Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.
Will Durant