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
Wherever men do things, other men will arise who will explain to them how things should be done. - Will Durant
Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life. - Will Durant
In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic. - Will Durant
The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet. - Will Durant
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. - Will Durant
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
Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization. - Will Durant
I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process - Will Durant
If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride. - Will Durant
A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose. - Immanuel Kant
Two things fill me with constantly increasing admiration and awe, the longer and more earnestly I reflect on them: the starry heavens without and the moral law within. - Immanuel Kant
