Will Durant Quotes

Education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

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

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

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one’s opportunities and make the most of one’s resources.

The profession of a teacher deserves more honor than any other profession.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

The least headache comes from simple thinking.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.

A great book begins long before its composition. It starts in the author’s life and ends in the reader’s.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

The trouble with most people is that they think backwards.

The future never comes. It is always present.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

The true aim of education is not knowledge but action.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed.

The only real conflict you will ever have in your life won’t be with others but with yourself.

The greatest lessons in life are not found in textbooks, but in the life experiences of others.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

The past is a pebble in the pond of life. The future is an infinite river of possibilities.

The greatest tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

We are all students of life, let us never cease our pursuit of knowledge.

Just as the most beautiful things in life are often the simplest, so too are the most profound truths.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.

The greatest reward in life is not what we get, but what we become.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

The only real failure in life is the failure to try.

True nobility is not about being better than others, but about being better than your former self.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

The purpose of education is to show people how to think, not what to think.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives but the most adaptable.

To find oneself, one must first lose oneself.

The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without purpose.

The purpose of education is not to fill the mind with facts, but to teach one how to think.

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