Zitate von William James Durant

„Bildung ist die ständige Entdeckung unserer eigenen Unwissenheit.“

—  William James Durant

„Eine Nation wird stoisch geboren und stirbt epikureisch.“

—  William James Durant

„Am Ende geht nichts verloren. Jedes Ereignis, zum Guten oder Bösen, hat Auswirkungen für immer.“

—  William James Durant

„Diejenigen, die viel gelitten haben, werden sehr bitter oder sehr sanft.“

—  William James Durant

„Wie viel mehr Leiden wird durch den Gedanken des Todes verursacht als durch den Tod selbst.“

—  William James Durant

„In der Philosophie wie in der Politik ist die größte Entfernung zwischen zwei Punkten eine gerade Linie.“

—  William James Durant

„Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.“

—  Will Durant

„Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.“

—  Will Durant

„Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day“

—  Will Durant

„How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.“

—  Will Durant

Quelle: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

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

—  Will Durant, buch The Story of Philosophy

Variante: We are what we repeatedly do. Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit
Quelle: The Story of Philosophy (1926), p. 87. The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7.
Kontext: Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'.

„Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.“

—  Will Durant

Quoted in "Books: The Great Gadfly", Time magazine, 8 October 1965 (review of The Age of Voltaire by Will and Ariel Durant)
Kontext: Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

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

—  Will Durant

„In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.“

—  Will Durant, buch The Story of Civilization

Quelle: The Story of Civilization

„A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean“

—  Will Durant

Quelle: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), II - Life of Greece (1939), Ch. I: Crete, Section IV: The Fall of Cnossus, P.51

„Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.“

—  Will Durant

Quelle: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

„All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor“

—  Will Durant

Our Changing Morals, in The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny, (1929), Simon and Schuster, New York, ch. 5. p. 119.
Kontext: The invention and spread of contraceptives is the proximate cause of our changing morals. The old moral code restricted sexual experience to marriage, because copulation could not be effectively separated from parentage, and parentage could be made responsible only through marriage. But to-day the dissociation of sex from reproduction has created a situation unforeseen by our fathers. All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor; and the moral code of the future will have to take account of these new facilities which invention has placed at the service of ancient desires.

„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.“

—  Will Durant, buch The Story of Civilization

Preface
The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), VI - The Reformation (1957)
Kontext: 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.

„I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature.“

—  Will Durant

Transition (1927)
Kontext: I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature. In the inexhaustible activity of the atom, in the endless resourcefulness of plants, in the teeming fertility of animals, in the hunger and movement of infants, in the laughter and play of children, in the love and devotion of youth, in the restless ambition of fathers and the lifelong sacrifice of mothers, in the undiscourageable researches of scientists and the sufferings of genius, in the crucifixion of prophets and the martyrdom of saints — in all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation. 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... I became almost reconciled to mortality, knowing that my spirit would survive me enshrined in a fairer mold... and that my little worth would somehow be preserved in the heritage of men. In a measure the Great Sadness was lifted from me, and, where I had seen omnipresent death, I saw now everywhere the pageant and triumph of life.