Philosophy Quotes by Will Durant

There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.

— Will Durant

In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.

— Will Durant

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

— Will Durant

“One of the lessons of history is that the gods can be silent in many languages.”

— Will Durant

To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.

— Will Durant

“In philosophy all truth is old and only error is original.”

— Will Durant

In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

— Will Durant

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

— Will Durant

“This is the tragedy of almost every civilization—that its soul is in its faith, and seldom survives philosophy.”

— Will Durant

Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy…

— Will Durant

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual,…

— Will Durant

“So philosophy purifies the will. But philosophy is to be understood as experience and thought, not as mere reading or passive study.”

— Will Durant

It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy…

— Will Durant

Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.

— Will Durant

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

— Will Durant

“But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly…

— Will Durant

“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this…

— Will Durant

Does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality - that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the…

— Will Durant

“[Herbert Spencer] was ready in those days to give everything a trial; he even thought of migrating to New Zealand, forgetting that…

— Will Durant

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother,…

— Will Durant

A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole.…

— Will Durant

“The worst conceivable government would be by philosophers; they botch every natural process with theory; their ability to make speeches and multiply…

— Will Durant

“When Zeno, who did not believe in slavery, was beating his slave for some offense, the slave pleaded, in mitigation, that by…

— Will Durant

“We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek…

— Will Durant

“we want to seize the value and perspective of passing things, and so to pull ourselves up out of the maelstrom of…

— Will Durant

“Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art: It arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation…

— Will Durant

“Civilizations are the generations of the racial soul. As family-rearing, and then writing, bound the generations together, handing down the lore of…

— Will Durant

“Here indeed was the great defect of the Greek mind: it was not disciplined; it lacked limiting and steadying traditions; it moved…

— Will Durant

“If there is any intelligence guiding this universe, philosophy wishes to know and understand it and reverently work with it; if there…

— Will Durant

“The only dedication in one of the hosts of books I have had the privilege of knowing, is from the great contemporary…

— Will Durant

“All this is, of course, the old philosophic distinction between reason and passion; but Spinoza adds vitally to Socrates and the Stoics.…

— Will Durant

“History is, above all else, the creation and recording of that heritage; progress is its increasing abundance, preservation, transmission, and use. To…

— Will Durant

“Ultimately there are but three systems of ethics, three conceptions of the ideal character and the moral life. One is that of…

— Will Durant

“..we have become wealthy, and wealth is the prelude to art. In every country where centuries of physical effort have accumulated the…

— Will Durant

“We are all drops of water trying to analyze the sea.”

— Will Durant

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual,…

— Will Durant

Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power,…

— Will Durant

“Read the book not all at once, but in small portions at many sittings. And having finished it, consider that you have…

— Will Durant