Quote

History seldom destroys that which does not deserve to die and the burning of the tares makes for the next sowing a richer soil.

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
Next
Destroys
Doe
Seldom
Soil
Burning
Deserve
Dies
Tares
History
Sowing
Makes
Richer

More quotes by 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
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
Image
Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.
Will Durant
Image
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.
Will Durant
Image
India was the motherland of our race and Samskrit the mother of Europe 's languages...Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
Will Durant
Image
An emperor knows how to govern when poets are free to make verses, people to act plays, historians to tell the truth, ministers to give advice, the poor to grumble at taxes, students to learn lessons aloud, workmen to praise their skill and seek work, people to speak of anything, and old men to find fault with everything.
Will Durant
Image
We teach more by what we are than by what we teach.
Will Durant
Image
Civilizations come and go they conquer the earth and crumble into dust but faith survives every desolation.
Will Durant
Image
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
Will Durant
Image
A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.
Will Durant
Image
Time sanctifies everything even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
Will Durant
Image
Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, the [bankers] know that history is inflationary.
Will Durant
Image
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
Image
History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.
Will Durant
Image
In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry in its decadence, philosophy and logic.
Will Durant
Image
Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty certainty is murderous.
Will Durant
Image
Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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
The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.
Will Durant
Image
Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution' - this was left for lesser minds.
Will Durant