Quote

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.

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
Ends
Pursuit
Begin
Epicurean
Civilization
Stoicism
Pleasure
Undisciplined
Dies
Scepticism
Religion
Stoic
Individual
Civilizations
Born
Unbelief

More quotes by 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
That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.
Will Durant
Image
Nothing is new except arrangement.
Will Durant
Image
If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.
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
Christianity did not destroy paganism it adopted it.
Will Durant
Image
Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
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
There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
Will Durant
Image
No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.
Will Durant
Image
The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.
Will Durant
Image
When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
Will Durant
Image
Knowledge that does not generate achievement is a pale and bloodless thing, unworthy of mankind.
Will Durant
Image
It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.
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
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
Civilization is not inherited it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.
Will Durant
Image
Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.
Will Durant
Image
A cat has a reputation to protect. If it had a halo, it would be worn cocked to one side.
Will Durant
Image
Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
Will Durant