524 Quotes by Will Durant

  • Author Will Durant
  • Quote

    One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing,"Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt - particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought?There is no philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself.Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

  • Tags
  • Share


  • Author Will Durant
  • Quote

    Reproduction is the ultimate purpose of every organism, and its strongest instinct; for only so can the will conquer death.And to ensure this conquest of death, the will to reproduce is placed almost entirely beyond control of knowledge or reflection: even a philosopher, occasionally, has children.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Will Durant
  • Quote

    But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly to Athens and Rhodes to exchange their oldest faith for the newest doubts.

  • Tags
  • Share





  • Author Will Durant
  • Quote

    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.

  • Tags
  • Share