Quotes & Sayings About Durant

Peace is war by other means. — Will Durant

By 1911 I found it impossible to continue my pretenses to orthodoxy; — Will Durant

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. — Will Durant

Death like style is the removal of rubbish. — Will Durant

What is beauty? why do we admire it? why do we endeavor to create it? [ ... ]
[B]eauty is any quality by which an object or a form pleases a beholder. Primarily and originally the object does not please the beholder because it is beautiful, but rather he calls it beautiful because it pleases him. Any object that satisfies desire will seem beautiful: food is beautiful - Thai's is not beautiful - to a starving man. — Will Durant

E have become wealthy, and wealth is the prelude to art. In every country where centuries of physical effort have accumulated the means for luxury and leisure, culture has followed as naturally as vegetation grows in a rich and watered soil. To have become wealthy was the first necessity; a people too must live before it can philosophize. No doubt we have grown faster than nations usually have grown; and the disorder of our souls is due to the rapidity of our development. We are like youths disturbed and unbalanced, for a time, by the sudden growth and experiences of puberty. But soon our maturity will come; our minds will catch up with our bodies, our culture with our possessions. Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare's, and greater minds than Plato's, waiting to be born. When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth, we too shall have our Renaissance. — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

we want to seize the value and perspective of passing things, and so to pull ourselves up out of the maelstrom of daily circumstance. We want to know that the little things are little, and the big things big, before it is too late; we want to see things now as they will seem forever-"in the light of eternity." We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the looming of death. We want to be whole, to coordinate our energies by criticizing and harmonizing our desires; for coordinated energy: is the last word in ethics and politics, and perhaps in logic and metaphysics too. — Will Durant

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances. — Will Durant

I fell so many times and got back up. I been through the toughest times with my family, but I'm still standing. — Kevin Durant

Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn. — Will Durant

Scott Brooks you mean the world to me. I love you. You as a man, I never met anybody like you. So selfless. You don't take the credit for nothing, Even though you deserve all of it. I love you and your family for always taking me in, Believing in me, Texting me late at night when I was going crazy. Thank you. Thank you. — Kevin Durant

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; — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

I'm a basketball player. That's what I do and what I love but that's just not all who I am. I'm talented in a lot of different areas. — Kevin Durant

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

I wanted to the best player in the state - [the best] the area has ever seen. That's always been my goal. Guys like Elgin Baylor, Adrian Dantley and Dave Bing, it's tough to pass those guys. So I'm studying, working. My project's not over yet. Hopefully, I get there. — Kevin Durant

Every memory I have from when I was a kid involves basketball. — Kevin Durant

Our best years are only ahead of us, so we got to continue to keep pushing. — Kevin Durant

No lie, just had one of the best times of my life at Rucker park..wow! I love NYHarlem waddup. — Kevin Durant

Russell ... I love you. I thank you so much man. You made me better. You know, Your work ethic. I always wanted to compete with you. I always wanted to pull up into the parking lot of the practice facility, And if you beat me there, I was always upset. I always wanted to outwork you. And you set the bar. You set the tone. And thank you so much man. Thank you. You had a big piece of this MVP trophy. You're an MVP caliber player It's a blessing to play with you man. — Kevin Durant

Everything has been such a whirlwind ever since I stepped foot in the league and everything has been like a dream, so I'm just blessed to be in this position. — Kevin Durant

Hard work beats talent and talent beats hard work — Kevin Durant

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism - . the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure - were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved; — Will Durant

It was fear that first made the gods25 - fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, winds, and sky. Religion became the propitiatory worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifice, incantation, and prayer. — Will Durant

Read, think well of mankind, go to our libraries and rejoice. — Will Durant

The family is the nucleus of civilization. — Will Durant

Fought their duels on Greek territory, conscripted Greek men, requisitioned Greek crops and gold, levied twenty years' taxes in two, and left the cities destitute. — Will Durant

The division of members into Tories or Whigs had by 1761 lost nearly all significance; the real division was between supporters and opponents of the current "government," or ministry, or of the king. By and large the Tories protected the landed interest; the Whigs were willing now and then to consider the desires of the business class; otherwise both Tories and Whigs were equally conservative. Neither party legislated for the benefit of the masses. — Will Durant

The state is the soul of man enlarged under the microscope of history. — Will Durant

As knowledge grew, fear decreased; men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming it. — Will Durant

When Russell was out, you stepped your game up for me, for the team. There were nights where you made me look way better than I am. You clean up so many of our mistakes, man, and we appreciate that. From everybody on the team, we appreciate that, man, and I thank you so much for giving me confidence when I didn't have it, for always being there when I wanted to talk to you, when I wanted to call, for arguing with me all the time, making me better, and realizing I'm not always right. Thank you, man. I appreciate you. — Kevin Durant

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. — Will Durant

Work harder than your opponent. — Kevin Durant

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. — Will Durant

We have always goodly stock in us of that which we condemn: as only similars can be profitably contrasted, so only similar people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest variations of purpose or belief. — Will Durant

I'm always hungry. I want to be the best. — Kevin Durant

Racial antipathies have some roots in ethnic origin, but they are also generated, perhaps predominantly, by differences of acquired culture - of language, dress, habits, morals, or religion. There is no cure for such antipathies except a broadened education. — Will Durant

Democritus (460-360 B.C.) - in reality there is nothing but atoms and space. — Will Durant

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. — Will Durant

With everything I do, I just try to be myself. — Kevin Durant

The Roman Republic would soon be destroyed by the unfettered energy of its great men. The redeeming feature of this aristocracy and — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

In Detroit, in a city that in many cases the world has rejected, that's where God shows up. Every example in the Gospels where God shows up, it's always when the seas are the stormiest, where there is discontinuity. — Clark Durant

When Germany defeated Napoleon it was a disastrous to culture as when Luther defeated the Church. — Will Durant

But which of us has read every line of the Iliad, or the Aeneid, or The Divine Comedy, or Paradise Lost? Only men of epic stomach can digest these epic tales. — Will Durant

An increasing number of devices allow people to collect data about themselves: blood sugar levels, the number of steps taken each day, and sleep cycles. It won't be long before checking blood work will only require a relatively inexpensive device that plugs into a smartphone, not a visit to the doctor's office. The cost of sequencing the genome continues to drop, and soon it will be as unremarkable as taking a fingerprint. — John Durant

I was always in the gym. People would look at me crazy because I spent so much time there. But that's what it was about. I'm glad I did it. — Kevin Durant

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. — Will Durant

The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding — Will Durant

Historians Will and Ariel Durant have written in The Story of Civilization: The Reformation that at the time of Luther, "a gallon of beer per day was the usual allowance per person, even for nuns." This may help to explain why beer figures so prominently in the life and writings of the great reformer. He was German, after all, and he lived at a time when beer was the European drink of choice. Moreover, having been freed from what he considered to be a narrow and life-draining religious legalism, he stepped into the world ready to enjoy its pleasures to the glory of God. For Luther, beer flowed best in a vibrant Christian life. — Stephen Mansfield

The advances of agricultural and contraceptive technology in the nineteenth century apparently refuted Malthus: in England, the United States, Germany, and France the food supply kept pace with births, and the rising standard of living deferred the age of marriage and lowered the size of the family. — Will Durant

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion. — Will Durant

If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an Anarchist Unphilosophical, and thinks Laws in his own case superfluous. — Will Durant

We must operate with partial knowledge, and be provisionally content with probabilities. — Ariel Durant

I have tried to keep some hold on the religion of my youth by interpreting its basic doctrines as symbols that gave popular expression to philosophic truths. I can rephrase "original sin" as man's inherited disposition to follow those instincts of pugnacity, sexual promiscuity, and greed which may have been necessary in the hunting stage of human history, but which need a variety of controls in an organized society that guarantees its members protection against violence, theft, and rape; we are born with the taint of ancestral passions in our blood. — Will Durant

I like women's basketball. — Kevin Durant

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent. — Will Durant

A book is like a quarrel. One word leads to another, and may erupt in blood or print, irrevocably. — Will Durant

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy. — Will Durant

No society can survive if it allows its members to behave toward one another in the same way in which it encourages them to behave as a group toward other groups; internal cooperation is the first law of external competition. The struggle for existence is not ended by mutual aid, it is incorporated, or transferred to the group. Other things equal, the ability to compete with rival groups will be proportionate to the ability of the individual members and families to combine with one another.
Hence every society inculcates a moral code, and builds up in the heart of the individual, as its secret allies and aides, social dispositions that mitigate the natural war of life; it encourages by calling them virtues those qualities or habits in the individual which redound to the advantage of the group, and discourages contrary qualities by calling them vices.
In this way the individual is in some outward measure socialized, and the animal becomes a citizen. — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

You know, I don't want to stand out too much. — Kevin Durant

Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever. — Will Durant

I probably play games more than I practice. — Kevin Durant

Avoid sunscreen! Regular sun exposure reduces risk of melanoma. — John Durant

This is the tragedy of almost every civilization - that its soul is in its faith, and seldom survives philosophy. — Will Durant

The decline of religious belief,which has all sorts of effects on morals and even on politics because religion has been a tool of politics. But today in Europe it ceases to be a tool, it has very little influence in determining political decisions - — Will Durant

The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization. — Ariel Durant

I'm a big competitor. — Kevin Durant

Remorse goes to sleep during a prosperous period and wakes up in adversity.
[Fr., Le remords s'endort durant un destin prospere et s'aigrit dans l'adversite.] — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions. — Will Durant

Eating a Paleolithic diet is not about historical re-enactment; it is about mimicking the effect of such a diet on the metabolism with foods available at the supermarket. There was no one diet eaten throughout the entire Paleolithic, nor is there a single diet eaten by contemporary hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherer diets can vary substantially depending on the geography, season, and culture. Even so, the commonalities among hunter-gatherer diets provide useful parameters for a healthy modern diet. — John Durant

You can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country. — Will Durant

My dream was to become a Rec League coach. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay home, And help the kids out, And be a coach. — Kevin Durant

[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely. — Will Durant

And I didn't fall in love with the game of basketball just because it was me playing. I fell in love with it Because I got guys like this, Like these guys every single day That push me to be the best player I can be. — Kevin Durant

So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it
perhaps as much more as the roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole. — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice. — Will Durant

Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. — Kevin Durant

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. — Will Durant

We have not fully recovered from the Dark Ages: the insecurity that excites greed, the fear that fosters cruelty, the poverty that breeds filth and ignorance, the filth that generates disease, the ignorance that begets credulity, superstition, occultism - these still survive amongst us; and the dogmatism that festers into intolerance and Inquisitions only awaits opportunity or permission to oppress, kill, ravage, and destroy. In this sense modernity is a cloak put upon medievalism, which secretly remains; and in every generation civilization is the laborious product and precarious obligating privilege of an engulfed minority. The — Will Durant

I'm here to shine a bright light. I'm not here to be a guy of death. I just like 'KD' better. — Kevin Durant

And again, though we cannot prove, we feel, that we are deathless. We perceive that life is not like those dramas so beloved by the people - in which every villain is punished, and every act of virtue meets with its reward; we learn anew every day that the wisdom of the serpent fares better here than the gentleness of the dove, and that any thief can triumph if he steals enough. If mere worldly utility and expediency were the justification of virtue, it would not be wise to be too good. And yet, knowing all this, having it flung into our faces with brutal repetition, we still feel the command to righteousness, we know that we ought to do the inexpedient good. — Will Durant

The individual succumbs, but he does not die if he has left something to mankind. — Will Durant

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions. — Will Durant

To the best account; it is an unintelligent waste of strength. — Will Durant

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. 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. — Will Durant

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean — Will Durant

Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law. — Will Durant

No man is educated for statesmanship who cannot see his time from the perspective of the past. — Will Durant

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. — Will Durant

Government itself, which is the most unnatural and necessary of social mechanisms, has usually required the support of piety and the priest, as clever heretics like Napoleon and Mussolini soon discovered; and hence a tendency to theocracy is incidental to all constitutions. — Will Durant

Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action. — Will Durant

You know, I think more people should watch women's basketball. It'd do so much for the game. — Kevin Durant

The historian always oversimplifies, and hastily selects a manageable minority of facts and faces out of a crowd of souls and events whose multitudinous complexity he can never quite embrace or comprehend. — Will Durant

It's fun that I get to live out my dream every single day. It's a blessing. I can't lose sight of that and I've just got to keep pushing. — Kevin Durant

I'll play all five positions if my team needs me to. — Kevin Durant

I want to go down as a winner. — Kevin Durant