Will Durant

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.

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.

Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts – between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.

Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A

Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the 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.

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.

Perhaps, in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all living things.

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing 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 the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks of the river.

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

In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.

He who leaves his home in search of knowledge walks in the path of God … and the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr”;

When a simpleton abused him, Buddha listened in silence; but when the man had finished, Buddha asked him: “Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?” The man answered: “To him who offered it.” “My son,” said Buddha, “I decline to accept your abuse, and request you to keep it for yourself

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.

"إن معظم التقدم الذي أصاب الحياة الإقتصادية في المجتمع البدائي كان يعزى للمرأة أكثر مما يعزى للرجل، فبينما ظل الرجل قروناً مستمسكاً بأساليبه القديمة من صيد ورعي، كانت هي تطور الزراعة على مقربة من محال السكنى، وتباشر تلك الفنون المنزلية التي أصبحت فيما بعد أهم ما يعرف الإنسان من صناعات.
ومن "شجرة الصوف" - كما كان الإغريق يسمون نبات القطن - جعلت المرأة تغزل الخيط وتنسج الثياب القطنية، وهي التي - على أرجح الظن - تقدمت بفنون الحياكة والنسج وصناعة السلال والخزف وأشغال الخشب والبناء، بل هل التي قامت بالتجارة في حالات كثيرة.
والمرأة هي التي طورت الدار، واستطاعت بالتدريج أن تضيف الرجل إلى قائمة ما استأنسته من حيوان، ودربته على أوضاع المجتمع وضروراته التي هي من المدنية أساسها النفسي وملاطها الذي يمسك أجزاء البناء، لكن لما تقدمت الزراعة وزاد طرحها، أخذ الجنس الأقوى يستولي على زمامها شيئاً فشيئاً."

"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";[69] we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit;"