Civilization Quotes by Will Durant

Education is the transmission of civilization.

— Will Durant

Can a civilization hold together if man abandons his faith in God?

— Will Durant

[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.

— Will Durant

The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith.

— Will Durant

The family is the nucleus of civilization.

— Will Durant

In the last analysis civilization is based upon the food supply.

— Will Durant

A civilization is born Stoic and dies Epicurean.

— Will Durant

“Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice.”

— Will Durant

“War is one of the constants of history, and has not diminished with civilization or democracy. In the last 3,421 years of…

— Will Durant

War is one of the constants of history, and it has not diminished with civilization or democracy.

— Will Durant

For you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrificed in the turbulence of change.

— Will Durant

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within”

— Will Durant

Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.

— 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

Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization.

— Will Durant

“Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization.”

— Will Durant

So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of…

— Will Durant

“There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. Underneath all civilization, ancient or…

— Will Durant

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for…

— Will Durant

Continue to express your dissent and your needs, but remember to remain civilized, for you will sorely miss civilization if it is…

— Will Durant

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is…

— Will Durant

Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition, and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when…

— Will Durant

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay…

— 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

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

— Will Durant

“This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it…

— Will Durant

“Magic begins in superstition, and ends in science. ... At every step the history of civilization teaches us how slight and superficial…

— Will Durant

“Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge…

— Will Durant

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge…

— Will Durant

The dog that buried the bone which even a canine appetite could not manage, the squirrel that gathered nuts for a later…

— 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

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.

— Will Durant

Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity.

— Will Durant

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

— Will Durant

From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

— Will Durant

“Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to…

— Will Durant

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things…

— Will Durant