Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up. When the classic religions decayed, communistic agitation rose in Athens (430 B.C.), and revolution began in Rome (133 B.C.); when these movements failed, resurrection faiths succeeded, culminating in Christianity; when, in our eighteenth century, Christian belief weakened, communism reappeared. In this perspective the future of religion is secure. - Will Durant
The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers. - Will Durant
The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history. - Will Durant
History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness. - Will Durant
History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances. - Will Durant
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
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
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
A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths. - Will Durant
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
I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality. - Will Durant
Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property. - Will Durant
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks. - Will Durant
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
If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. - Will Durant
Progress is the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form and will. It need not be continuous to be real. - Will Durant
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