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The Lessons of History
Will Durant
Top 10 Best Quotes
“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.”
“you can’t fool all the people all the time,” but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.”
“Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.”
“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.”
“It is not the race that makes the civilization, it is the civilization that makes the people: circumstances geographical, economic, and political create a culture, and the culture creates a human type.”
“We frolic in our emancipation from theology, but have we developed a natural ethic—a moral code independent of religion—strong enough to keep our instincts of acquisition, pugnacity, and sex from debasing our civilization into a mire of greed, crime, and promiscuity? Have we really outgrown intolerance, or merely transferred it from religious to national, ideological, or racial hostilities?”
“Normally and generally men are judged by their ability to produce—except in war, when they are ranked according to their ability to destroy.”
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Book Keywords:
capitalism, socialism, wealth