In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line. Will Durant More Quotes by Will Durant More Quotes From Will Durant When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty. Will Durant libertywisdomorder Never mind your happiness; do your duty. Will Durant mindactionhappiness The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith. Will Durant diessoulcivilization 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 skillsplaymen When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship. Will Durant chaosdictatorshipliberty We teach more by what we are than by what we teach. Will Durant social-justiceteachjustice Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes. Will Durant libertypoliticalgovernment The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can't be done. Will Durant motivationnaturepeople 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 desireaveragemen Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Will Durant achievementphilosophyart The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history. Will Durant ruinscivilizationhistory Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it. Will Durant repeatsdoomedforever And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world. Will Durant lightfiremen 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 savagescivilizationhistory Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul. Will Durant eyeeducationknowledge War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy. Will Durant democracywarcivilization Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos. Will Durant libertycivilizationorder 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. Will Durant lawmenthinking It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system. Will Durant indiachessphilosophy Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free. Will Durant rich
