Quote

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

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
Soul
Civilization
Dies
Religion
Faith

More quotes by Will Durant

Image
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.
Will Durant
Image
Music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of arts.
Will Durant
Image
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
Will Durant
Image
If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
Will Durant
Image
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
Image
We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive redistribution.
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
Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
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
Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.
Will Durant
Image
India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.
Will Durant
Image
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
Image
Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever.
Will Durant
Image
Even when repressed, inequality grows only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.
Will Durant
Image
Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
Will Durant
Image
Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.
Will Durant
Image
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
Image
To seek, beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony of things.
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
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant