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The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith.

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
Civilization
Dies
Religion
Faith
Soul

More quotes by Will Durant

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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant
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Can a civilization hold together if man abandons his faith in God?
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
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How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.
Will Durant
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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.
Will Durant
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Every state begins in compulsion but the habits of obedience become the content of conscience, and soon every citizen thrills with loyalty to the flag. The citizen is right for however the state begins, it soon becomes an indispensable prop to order.
Will Durant
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The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.
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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Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.
Will Durant
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Knowledge that does not generate achievement is a pale and bloodless thing, unworthy of mankind.
Will Durant
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The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.
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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The Institutional Church (ecclesia) has killed only two kinds of people: Those who do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and those who do.
Will Durant
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To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.
Will Durant
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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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Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
Will Durant
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Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
Will Durant
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Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.
Will Durant
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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
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History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age.
Will Durant