Background Image

...

What If It Is For Life's Sake That We Must Die? In Truth We Are Not Individuals; And It Is Because We Think Ourselves Such That Death Seems Unforgivable. We Are Temporary Organs Of The Race, Cells In The Body Of Life; We Die And Drop Away That Life May Remain Young And Strong. If We Were To Live Forever, Growth Would Be Stifled, And Youth Would Find No Room On Earth. Death, Like Style, Is The Removal Of Rubbish, The Circumcision Of The Superfluous. In The Midst Of Death Life Renews Itself Immortally.

-Will Durant

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What If It Is

Will Durant

...

What If It Is For Life's Sake That We Must Die? In Truth We Are Not Individuals; And It Is Because We Think Ourselves Such That Death Seems Unforgivable. We Are Temporary Organs Of The Race, Cells In The Body Of Life; We Die And Drop Away That Life May Remain Young And Strong. If We Were To Live Forever, Growth Would Be Stifled, And Youth Would Find No Room On Earth. Death, Like Style, Is The Removal Of Rubbish, The Circumcision Of The Superfluous. In The Midst Of Death Life Renews Itself Immortally.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Will Durant

All That Is Good In Our History Is Gathered In Libraries. At This Moment, Plato Is Down There At The Library Waiting For Us. So Is Aristotle. Spinoza Is There And So Is Kats. Shelly And Byron Adn Sam Johnson Are There Waiting To Tell Us Their Magnificent Stories. All You Have To Do Is Walk In The Library Door And The Great Company Open Their Arms To You. They Are So Happy To See You That They Come Out With You Into The Street And To Your Home. And They Do What Hardly Any Friend Will-- They Are Silent When You Wish To Think.

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.

History Reports That The Men Who Can Manage Men Manage The Men Who Can Manage Only Things, And The Men Who Can Manage Money Manage All.

Civilization Is The Order And Freedom Is Promoting Cultural Activity.

Art Lies In Conceiving And Designing, Not In The Actual Execution' - This Was Left For Lesser Minds.

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.

Concentration Of Wealth

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.

Moral Codes Adjust Themselves To Environmental Conditions.

History Is Always Repeating Itself, But Each Time The Price Goes Up.

Which Is Now A More Hopeful Statement Than Swift Intended It To Be.

The Laws That Charondas Gave To Catana,... A Man Might Divorce His Wife, Or A Wife Her Husband, Said Charondas, But Then He Or She Must Not Marry Anyone Younger Than The Divorced Mate.

Contentment Is Rare Among Men As It Is Natural Among Animals

It May Be True That You Can't Fool All The People All The Time, But You Can Fool Enough Of Them To Rule A Large Country.

Sixty Years Ago I Knew Everything. Now I Know Nothing. Education Is A Progressive Discovery Of Our Own Ignorance.

Even When Repressed, Inequality Grows; Only The Man Who Is Below The Average In Economic Ability Desires Equality; Those Who Are Conscious Of Superior Ability Desire Freedom, And In The End Superior Ability Has Its Way.

The Dog That Buried The Bone Which Even A Canine Appetite Could Not Manage, The Squirrel That Gathered Nuts For A Later Feast, The Bees That Filled The Comb With Honey, The Ants That Laid Up Stores For A Rainy Day - These Were Among The First Creators Of Civilization. It Was They....who Taught Our Ancestors The Art Of Providing For Tomorrow Out Of The Surplus Of Today, Or Of Preparing For Winter In Summer's Time Of Plenty.

Progress Is The Increasing Control Of The Environment By Life.

In Progressive Societies The Concentration[of Wealth] May Reach A Point Where The Strength Of Number In The Many Poor Rivals The Strength Of Ability In The Few Rich; Then The Unstable Equilibrium Generates A Critical Situation, Which History Has Diversely Met By Legislation Redistributing Wealth Or By Revolution Distributing Poverty.

Concentration Of Wealth

Progressive Society

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.

Education Is The Transformation Of Civilisation

We Have Conferred A Mystic Popularity Upon Officials Whose Only Virtue Is Their Timidity; While Our Scorn Of Rebels And Reformers Is So Great That We Have Ceased To Persecute Them. The Capitals And Governments Of The World Are In The Hands Of Caution; And Change Comes Over Them Only In The Night, Unseen.

There Is Nothing In Socialism That A Little Age Or A Little Money Will Not Cure.

In The End, Nothing Is Lost. Every Event, For Good Or Evil, Has Effects Forever.

By And Large The Poor Have The Same Impulses As The Rich, With Only Less Opportunity Or Skill To Implement Them

Continue To Express Your Dissent And Your Needs, But Remember To Remain Civilized, For You Will Sorely Miss Civilization If It Is Sacrified In The Turbulence Of Change.

So I Should Say That Civilizations Begin With Religion And Stoicism: They End With Scepticism And Unbelief, And The Undisciplined Pursuit Of Individual Pleasure. A Civilization Is Born Stoic And Dies Epicurean.

Who Will Dare To Write A History Of Human Goodness?

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.

There Have Been Only 268 Of The Past 3,421 Years Free Of War.

There Is Hardly An Absurdity Of The Past That Cannot Be Found Flourishing Somewhere In The Present.

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

India Was The Motherland Of Our Race And Samskrit The Mother Of Europe 's Languages...mother India Is In Many Ways The Mother Of Us All.

Never Put A Man In The Wrong. He Will Hold It Against You Forever.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence, Then, Is Not An Act, But A Habit.

Truth Always Originates In A Minority Of One, And Every Custom Begins As A Broken Precedent.

The Future Never Just Happened. It Was Created.

Forced To Choose, The Poor, Like The Rich, Love Money More Than Political Liberty; And The Only Political Freedom Capable Of Enduring Is One That Is So Pruned As To Keep The Rich From Denuding The Poor By Ability Or Subtlety And The Poor From Robbing The Rich By Violence Or Votes.

Science Gives Us Knowledge, But Only Philosophy Can Give Us Wisdom.

How Much More Suffering Is Caused By The Thought Of Death Than By Death Itself.

Thoughts Of Death

Philosophy Is Harmonized Knowledge Making A Harmonious Life; It Is The Self-discipline Which Lifts Us To Serenity And Freedom. Knowledge Is Power, But Only Wisdom Is Liberty.

Education Is The Transmission Of Civilization.

We Are Living In The Excesses Of Freedom. Just Take A Look At 42nd Street And Broadway.

That A Few Simple Men Should In One Generation Have Invented So Powerful And Appealing A Personality, So Lofty Ethic, And So Inspiring A Vision Of Human Brotherhood, Would Be A Miracle Far More Incredible Than Any Recorded In The Gospels.

Human Progress Having Reached A High Level Through Respect For The Liberty And Dignity Of Men, It Has Become Desirable To Re-affirm These Evident Truths

India Was The Motherland Of Our Race, And Sanskrit The Mother Of Europe's Languages: She Was The Mother Of Our Philosophy; Mother, Through The Arabs, Of Much Of Our Mathematics; Mother, Through The Buddha, Of The Ideals Embodied In Christianity; Mother, Through The Village Community, Of Self-government And Democracy. Mother India Is In Many Ways The Mother Of Us All.

Knowledge Is The Eye Of Desire And Can Become The Pilot Of The Soul.

The Victors Called The Revolution A Triumph Of Liberty; But Now And Then Liberty In The Slogans Of The Strong Means Freedom From Restraint In The Exploitation Of The Weak.

What If It Is For Life's Sake That We Must Die? In Truth We Are Not Individuals; And It Is Because We Think Ourselves Such That Death Seems Unforgivable. We Are Temporary Organs Of The Race, Cells In The Body Of Life; We Die And Drop Away That Life May Remain Young And Strong. If We Were To Live Forever, Growth Would Be Stifled, And Youth Would Find No Room On Earth. Death, Like Style, Is The Removal Of Rubbish, The Circumcision Of The Superfluous. In The Midst Of Death Life Renews Itself Immortally.

A Civilization Is Born Stoic And Dies Epicurean.

Love One Another. My Final Lesson Of History Is The Same As That Of Jesus. You May Think That's A Lot Of Lollipop But Just Try It. Love Is The Most Practical Thing In The World. If You Take An Attitude Of Love Toward Everybody You Meet, You'll Eventually Get Along.

The Political Machine Triumphs Because It Is A United Minority Acting Against A Divided Majority.

Progress Is The Domination Of Chaos By Mind And Purpose, Of Matter By Form And Will. It Need Not Be Continuous To Be Real.

Can A Civilization Hold Together If Man Abandons His Faith In God?

Cultivate Your Garden Do Not Depend Upon Teachers To Educate You Follow Your Own Bent, Pursue Your Curiosity Bravely, Express Yourself, Make Your Own Harmony In The End, Education, Like Happiness, Is Individual, And Must Come To Us From Life And From Ourselves. There Is No Way; Each Pilgrim Must Make His Own Path. "happiness," Said Chamfort, "is Not Easily Won; It Is Hard To Find It In Ourselves, And Impossible To Find It Elsewhere.

Liberty Is A Luxury Of Security; The Free Individual Is A Product And A Mark Of Civilization.

It Is One Of The Most Culpable Oversights Of Nature That Virtue And Beauty So Often Come In Separate Packages.

The Soul Of A Civilization Is Its Religion, And It Dies With Its Faith.

The Individual Succumbs, But He Does Not Die If He Has Left Something To Mankind.

Bankers Know That History Is Inflationary And That Money Is The Last Thing A Wise Man Will Hoard

Communism Is The Opiate Of The People.

Nature Has Never Read The Declaration Of Independence. It Continues To Make Us Unequal.

Never Mind Your Happiness; Do Your Duty.

In The Last Analysis Civilization Is Based Upon The Food Supply.

No Man Who Is In A Hurry Is Quite Civilized.

India Will Teach Us The Tolerance And Gentleness Of Mature Mind, Understanding Spirit And A Unifying, Pacifying Love For All Human Beings.

Those Who Have Suffered Much Become Very Bitter Or Very Gentle.

To Give Life A Meaning, One Must Have A Purpose Larger Than Self.

Meaning Of Life

Every State Begins In Compulsion; But The Habits Of Obedience Become The Content Of Conscience, And Soon Every Citizen Thrills With Loyalty To The Flag. The Citizen Is Right; For However The State Begins, It Soon Becomes An Indispensable Prop To Order.

All Deductions Having Been Made, Democracy Has Done Less Harm, And More Good, Than Any Other Form Of Government. It Gave To Human Existence A Zest And Camaraderie That Outweighed Its Pitfalls And Defects. It Gave To Thought And Science And Enterprise The Freedom Essential To Their Operation And Growth. It Broke Down The Walls Of Privilege And Class, And In Each Generation It Raised Up Ability From Every Rank And Place.

Democracies Have

The Time When You Need To Do Something Is When No One Else Is Willing To Do It, When People Are Saying It Can't Be Done.

Philosophy Begins When One Learns To Doubt -- Particularly To Doubt One's Cherished Beliefs, One's Dogmas And One's Axioms.

Caesar's Armies Marched On Vegetarian Foods.

Inquiry Is Fatal To Certainty.

A Great Civilization Is Not Conquered From Without, Until It Has Destroyed Itself From Within. The Essential Causes Of Rome's Decline Lay In Her People, Her Morals, Her Class Struggle, Her Failing Trade, Her Bureaucratic Despotism, Her Stifling Taxes, Her Consuming Wars.

When Liberty Destroys Order The Hunger For Order Will Destroy Liberty.

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.

We Teach More By What We Are Than By What We Teach.

Tired Mothers Find That Spanking Takes Less Time Than Reasoning And Penetrates Sooner To The Seat Of The Memory.

When Liberty Becomes License, Dictatorship Is Near.

Men Decided That It Was Better To Pay Taxes Than To Fight Among Themselves; Better To Pay Tribute To One Magnificent Robber Than To Bribe Them All.

The Finger That Turns The Dial Rules The Air.

Civilization Is Not Inherited; It Has To Be Learned And Earned By Each Generation Anew; If The Transmission Should Be Interrupted For One Century, Civilization Would Die, And We Should Be Savages Again.

So Prominent Was The Jewish Role In The Foreign Commerce Of Europe That Those Nations That Received The Jews Gained And The Countries That Excluded Them Lost In The Volume Of International Trade.

If I Were Rich I Would Have Many Books, And I Would Pamper Myself With Bindings Bright To The Eye And Soft To The Touch, Paper Generously Opaque, And Type Such As Men Designed When Printing Was Very Young. I Would Dress My Gods In Leather And Gold, And Burn Candles Of Worship Before Them At Night, And String Their Names Like Beads On A String.

The Trouble With Most People Is That They Think With Their Hopes Or Fears Or Wishes Rather Than With Their Minds.

History Is So Indifferently Rich, That A Case For Almost Any Conclusion From It Can Be Made By A Selection Of Instances.

Music And Religion Are As Intimately Related As Poetry And Love; The Deepest Emotions Require For Their Civilized Expression The Most Emotional Of Arts.

It Came To Me That Reform Should Begin At Home, And Since That Day I Have Not Had Time To Remake The World.

Science Tells Us How To Heal And How To Kill; It Reduces Our Death Rate In Retail And Then Kills Us Wholesale In War; But Only Wisdom - Desire Coordinated In The Light Of All Experience - Can Tell Us When To Heal And When To Kill.

The Ego Is Willing But The Machine Cannot Go On. It's The Last Thing A Man Will Admit, That His Mind Ages.

To Say Nothing, Especially When Speaking, Is Half The Art Of Diplomacy.

And Last Are The Few Whose Delight Is In Meditation And Understanding; Who Yearn Not For Goods, Nor For Victory, But For Knowledge; Who Leave Both Market And Battlefield To Lose Themselves In The Quiet Clarity Of Secluded Thought; Whose Will Is A Light Rather Than A Fire, Whose Haven Is Not Power But Truth: These Are The Men Of Wisdom, Who Stand Aside Unused By The World.

To Rulers Religion, Like Almost Everything Else, Is A Tool Of Power.

If Man Asks For Many Laws It Is Only Because He Is Sure That His Neighbor Needs Them; Privately He Is An Unphilosophical Anarchist, And Thinks Laws In His Own Case Superfluous.

Paul Created A Theology Of Which None But The Vaguest Warrants Can Be Found In The Words Of Christ.

Knowledge That Does Not Generate Achievement Is A Pale And Bloodless Thing, Unworthy Of Mankind.

Destroy It. There May Be A Redistribution Of The Land, But The Natural Inequality Of Men Soon Re-creates An Inequality Of Possessions And Privileges, And Raises To Power A New Minority With Essentially The Same Instincts As The Old.

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.

[h]istory Assures Us That Civilizations Decay Quite Leisurely.

As Knowledge Grew, Fear Decreased; Men Thought Less Of Worshiping The Unknown, And More Of Overcoming It.

So The Story Of Man Runs In A Dreary Circle, Because He Is Not Yet Master Of The Earth That Holds Him.

Man Is An Emotional Animal, Occasionally Rational; And Through His Feelings He Can Be Deceived To His Heart's Content.

If We Have Never Been Amazed By The Very Fact That We Exist, We Are Squandering The Greatest Fact Of All.

Every Science Begins As Philosophy And Ends As Art; It Arises In Hypothesis And Flows Into Achievement.

The Past Is Not Dead. Indeed, It Is Often Not Even Past.

Every Form Of Government Tends To Perish By Excess Of Its Basic Principle.

History Offers Some Consolation By Reminding Us That Sin Has Flourished In Every Age.

Grow Strong, My Comrade … That You May Stand Unshaken When I Fall; That I May Know The Shattered Fragments Of My Song Will Come At Last To Finer Melody In You; That I May Tell My Heart That You Begin Where Passing I Leave Off, And Fathom More.

Science Without Philosophy, Facts Without Perspective And Valuation, Cannot Save Us From Havoc And Despair. Science Gives Us Knowledge, But Only Philosophy Can Give Us Wisdom.

The Greatest Question Of Our Time Is Not Communism Vs. Individualism, Not Europe Vs. America, Not Even The East Vs. The West; It Is Whether Men Can Bear To Live Without God.

In My Youth I Stressed Freedom, And In My Old Age I Stress Order. I Have Made The Great Discovery That Liberty Is A Product Of Order.

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.

Nothing Is Often A Good Thing To Do And Always A Good Thing To Say.

Good Communication

Cultural Creation... Begins Where Chaos And Insecurity End.

For You Will Sorely Miss Civilization If It Is Sacrificed In The Turbulence Of Change.

It Is True That Even Across The Himalayan Barrier India Has Sent To The West, Such Gifts As Grammar And Logic, Philosophy And Fables, Hypnotism And Chess, And Above All Numerals And The Decimal System.

History Seldom Destroys That Which Does Not Deserve To Die; And The Burning Of The Tares Makes For The Next Sowing A Richer Soil.

Often Your Face Is Your Autobiography

Nothing Is New Except Arrangement.

Those Who Know Nothing About History Are Doomed Forever To Repeat It.

The Islamic Conquest Of India Is Probably The Bloodiest Story In History. It Is A Discouraging Tale, For Its Evident Moral Is That Civilization Is A Precious Good, Whose Delicate Complex Of Order And Freedom, Culture And Peace, Can At Any Moment Be Overthrown By Barbarians Invading From Without Or Multiplying Within.

The World Wisely Prefers Happiness To Wisdom.

The Failure Of The Reformation To Capture France Had Left For Frenchmen No Half-way House Between Infallibility And Infidelity; And While The Intellect Of Germany And England Moved Leisurely In The Lines Of Religious Evolution, The Mind Of France Leaped From The Hot Faith Which Had Massacred The Huguenots To The Cold Hostility With Which La Mettrie, Helvetius, Holbach, And Diderot Turned Upon The Religion Of The Fathers.

Forget Mistakes. Forget Failure. Forget Everything Except What You're Going To Do Now And Do It. Today Is Your Lucky Day

A Statesman Cannot Afford To Be A Moralist.

As To Harmonizing The Theory Of Evolution With The Biblical Account Of Creation, I Do Not Believe It Can Be Done, And I Do Not See Why It Should Be. The Story Of Genesis Is Beautiful, And Profoundly Significant As Symbolism: There Is No Good Reason To Torture It Into Conformity With Modern Theory.

Rome Remained Great As Long As She Had Enemies Who Forced Her To Unity, Vision, And Heroism. When She Had Overcome Them All She Flourished For A Moment And Then Began To Die.

The Only Real Revolution Is In The Enlightenment Of The Mind And The Improvement Of Character, The Only Real Emancipation Is Individual, And The Only Real Revolutionists Are Philosophers And Saints.

Tolerance Grows Only When Faith Loses Certainty; Certainty Is Murderous.

Most Of Us Spend Too Much Time On The Last Twenty-four Hours And Too Little On The Last Six Thousand Years.

Civilization Begins With Order, Grows With Liberty, And Dies With Chaos.

To Seek, Beneath The Universal Strife, The Hidden Harmony Of Things.

The Love We Have In Our Youth Is Superficial Compared To The Love That An Old Man Has For His Old Wife.

Liberty Is A Product Of Order.

As Long As There Is Poverty There Will Be Gods.

A Cat Has A Reputation To Protect. If It Had A Halo, It Would Be Worn Cocked To One Side.

History Repeats Itself In The Large Because Human Nature Changes With Geological Leisureliness.

History Repeats Itself

Repeating History

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.

We Americans Are The Best Informed People On Earth As To The Events Of The Last Twenty-four Hours; We Are The Not The Best Informed As The Events Of The Last Sixty Centuries.

Perhaps It Is One Secret Of Their Power That, Having Studied The Fluctuations Of Prices, The [bankers] Know That History Is Inflationary.

Cultivate Your Garden. Do Not Depend Upon Teachers To Educate You... Follow Your Own Bent, Pursue Your Curiosity Bravely, Express Yourself, Make Your Own Harmony.

In Philosophy, As In Politics, The Longest Distance Between Two Points Is A Straight Line.

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.

Concentration Of Wealth

Economic History

The Crossroads Of Trade Are The Meeting Place Of Ideas, The Attrition Ground Of Rival Customs And Beliefs; Diversities Beget Conflict, Comparison, Thought; Superstitions Cancel One Another, And Reason Begins.

When Liberty Exceeds Intelligence, It Begets Chaos, Which Begets Dictatorship.

The South Creates The Civilizations, The North Conquers Them, Ruins Them, Borrows From Them, Spreads Them: This Is One Summary Of History.

Christianity Did Not Destroy Paganism; It Adopted It.

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.

Woe To Him Who Teaches Men Faster Than They Can Learn.

There Is No Real Philosophy Until The Mind Turns Around And Examines Itself.

Hunting Is Now To Most Of Us A Game, Whose Relish Seems Based Upon Some Mystic Remembrance, In The Blood, Of Ancient Days When To Hunter As Well As Hunted It Was A Matter Of Life And Death.

Civilization Exists By Geological Consent, Subject To Change Without Notice.

Time Sanctifies Everything; Even The Most Arrant Theft In The Hands Of The Robber's Grandchildren Becomes Sacred And Inviolable Property.

Freedom And Equality Are Naturan Born Enemies.

Freedom And Equality

If Our Economy Of Freedom Fails To Distribute Wealth As Ably As It Has Created It, The Road To Dictatorship Will Be Open To Any Man Who Can Persuasively Promise Security To All.

History Is Mostly Guessing; The Rest Is Prejudice.

There Is No Significant Example In History, Before Our Time, Of A Society Successfully Maintaining Moral Life Without The Aid Of Religion.

War Is One Of The Constants Of History, And It Has Not Diminished With Civilization Or Democracy.

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.

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.

Man Became Free When He Recognized That He Was Subject To Law.

In Constantinople, More Christians Were Slaughtered By Christians In The Years 342-343 Than By All The Persecutions By Pagans In The History Of Rome.

The Great Snare Of Thought Is Uncritical Acceptance Of Irrational Assumptions.

Education Is A Progressive Discovery Of Our Own Ignorance.

Civilizaton Is The Interval Between Ice Ages.

Fundamentalism Is The Triumph Of Paul Over Christ.

Truth Will Not Make Us Rich, But It Will Make Us Free.

Peace Is An Unstable Equilibrium, Which Can Be Preserved Only By Acknowledged Supremacy Or Equal Power.

In Its Youth A People Produce Mythology And Poetry; In Its Decadence, Philosophy And Logic.

Read, Think Well Of Mankind, Go To Our Libraries And Rejoice.

Knowledge Is Power But Only Wisdom Is Liberty.

Civilizations Come And Go; They Conquer The Earth And Crumble Into Dust; But Faith Survives Every Desolation.

The Experience Of The Past Lives Little Doubt That Every Economic System Must Sooner Or Later Rely Upon Some Form Of The Profit Motive To Stir Individuals And Groups To Productivity. Substitutes Like Slavery, Police Supervision, Or Ideological Enthusiasm Prove Too Unproductive, Too Expensive, Or Too Transient.

Does History Warrant The Conclusion That Religion Is Necessary To Morality - That A Natural Ethic Is Too Weak To Withstand The Savagery That Lurks Under Civilization And Emerges In Our Dreams, Crimes And Wars? ... There Is No Significant Example In History, Before Our Time, Of A Society Successfully Maintaining Moral Life Without The Aid Of Religion.

Drunkenness Was In Good Repute In England Till "bloody Mary" Frowned Upon It; It Remained Popular In Germany. The French Drank More Stably, Not Being Quite So Cold.

The Health Of Nations Is More Important Than The Wealth Of Nations.

An Emperor Knows How To Govern When Poets Are Free To Make Verses, People To Act Plays, Historians To Tell The Truth, Ministers To Give Advice, The Poor To Grumble At Taxes, Students To Learn Lessons Aloud, Workmen To Praise Their Skill And Seek Work, People To Speak Of Anything, And Old Men To Find Fault With Everything.

As Soon As Liberty Is Complete It Dies In Anarchy.

To Speak Ill Of Others Is A Dishonest Way Of Praising Ourselves; Let Us Be Above Such Transparent Egotism. If You Can't Say Good And Encouraging Things, Say Nothing. Nothing Is Often A Good Thing To Do, And Always A Clever Thing To Say.

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.

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

Every Vice Was Once A Virtue, And May Become Respectable Again, Just As Hatred Becomes Respectable In Wartime.

Our Knowledge Is A Receding Mirage In An Expanding Desert Of Ignorance.

Power Dements Even More Than It Corrupts, Lowering The Guard Of Foresight And Raising The Haste Of Action.

Wherever Men Do Things, Other Men Will Arise Who Will Explain To Them How Things Should Be Done.

The Institutional Church (ecclesia) Has Killed Only Two Kinds Of People: Those Who Do Not Believe In The Teachings Of Jesus Christ, And Those Who Do.

From Barbarism To Civilization Requires A Century; From Civilization To Barbarism Needs But A Day.

Trending Author

Chen Guangcheng

Willard Van Orman Quine

Category