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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.

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

More quotes by Will Durant

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Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.
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Read, think well of mankind, go to our libraries and rejoice.
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Contentment is rare among men as it is natural among animals
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Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
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A cat has a reputation to protect. If it had a halo, it would be worn cocked to one side.
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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.
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by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them
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The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.
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The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.
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Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.
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Knowledge that does not generate achievement is a pale and bloodless thing, unworthy of mankind.
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The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.
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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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Nothing is new except arrangement.
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History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness.
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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.
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
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.
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As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.
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To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
Will Durant