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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
Epicurean
Stoic
Civilization
Dies
Born

More quotes by Will Durant

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There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.
Will Durant
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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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Nothing is new except arrangement.
Will Durant
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The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.
Will Durant
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The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
Will Durant
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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
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So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him.
Will Durant
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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
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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
Will Durant
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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
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The past is not dead. Indeed, it is often not even past.
Will Durant
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To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.
Will Durant
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Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
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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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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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
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Never mind your happiness do your duty.
Will Durant
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Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old.
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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Drunkenness was in good repute in England till Bloody Mary frowned upon it it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not being quite so cold.
Will Durant