Will Durant Quotes

American - Historian November 5, 1885 - November 7, 1981

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Excellence Habit Act Then Repeatedly

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.

Chaos Civilization Liberty Begins

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

Knowledge Ignorance Desert Our

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.

Dictatorship Liberty License Becomes

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

Time People Fool You

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

Environmental Moral Adjust Themselves

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Knowledge Soul Eye Pilot Desire

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Education Ignorance Own Discovery

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Education Ignorance Know Nothing

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

Political Acting Against Minority

Top 10
Will Durant
Quotes

The family is the nucleus of civilization.

Family Civilization

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Man Only Own Neighbor

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Science Wisdom Knowledge Philosophy

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

Communication Art Nothing Say Half

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.

Good Speak Way Always

The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.

Love Man Wife Youth

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

Change Without Civilization Consent

Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.

Nature Independence Never Us

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

Hope People Think Trouble

In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.

Freedom Age Great Stress

We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.

Best People Earth Events

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

Government Principle Excess Form

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

War Past Free Only

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

Liberty Soon Anarchy Complete

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

Science Art Philosophy Begins Every

History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.

History Rest Prejudice Guessing

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Carter G. Woodson

James Truslow Adams

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