Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation. — Will Durant Copy Share Image
Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous. — Will Durant Copy Share Image
Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. — Will Durant Copy Share Image
The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith. — Will Durant Copy Share Image
“This is the tragedy of almost every civilization—that its soul is in its faith, and seldom survives philosophy.” — Will Durant Copy Share Image
I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
“But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison,… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things… — Will Durant Copy Share Image
I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic… — Will Durant Copy Share
“This is the tragedy of almost every civilization—that its soul is in its faith, and seldom survives philosophy.” — Will Durant Copy Share
In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line. — Will Durant Copy Share
“Hence the uselessness of logic: no one ever convinced anybody by logic; and even logicians use logic only as a source of income. To… — Will Durant Copy Share
“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The… — Will Durant Copy Share
“There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved… — Will Durant Copy Share
The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization… — Will Durant Copy Share
“Intellectualism—the conception of man as above all a thinking animal, consciously adapting means to rationally chosen ends—fell sick with Rousseau, took to its bed… — Will Durant Copy Share
“All those fascinating varieties of terrain—mountains and valleys, fiords and straits, gulfs and streams—that make Europe a panorama of diverse delight, have broken the… — Will Durant Copy Share
“To be great is not to be placed above humanity, ruling others; but to stand above the partialities and futilities of uninformed desire, and… — Will Durant Copy Share
“privately he composed—in French—a poem expressing his pleasure at having given the French a kick in the cul, which Carlyle delicately translated as “the… — Will Durant Copy Share
“And in the individual too, justice is effective coördination, the harmonious functioning of the elements in a man, each in its fit place and… — Will Durant Copy Share
