Will Durant citáty

strana 2

„Jsme to, co opakovaně děláme. Dokonalost tedy není čin, ale zvyk.“

„Problém s většinou lidí spočívá v tom, že myslí svými nadějemi nebo obavami či přáními spíše než s jejich myslí.“

„Věda nám dává poznání, ale pouze filozofie nám může dát moudrost.“

„O kolik více utrpení je způsobeno myšlenkou na smrt než smrtí samotnou.“

„Vzdělávání je soustavné objevování naší vlastní nevědomosti.“

„Když řekneme, že jsme svobodní, znamená to, že víme, co děláme.“

„Kdyby několik prostých mužů v jedné generaci vymyslelo tak silnou a přitažlivou osobnost s tak vysokou etikou a natolik podněcující představu o lidském bratrství, byl by to mnohem neuvěřitelnější zázrak než všechny ty, které jsou zaznamenány v evangeliích.“

„Většina z nás stráví příliš mnoho času přemýšlením o věcech, které se udály za posledních dvacet čtyři hodin, a příliš málo o věcech, které se udály za posledních šest tisíc let.“

„Ti, kdo trpěli, jsou velmi hořcí nebo velmi jemní.“

„Národ se rodí stoický a umírá epikurejský.“

„Nakonec, nic není ztraceno. Každá událost, dobrá nebo špatná, má své důsledky.“

„Ve filozofii, stejně jako v politice, je nejdelší vzdálenost mezi dvěma body přímka.“

„Přemýšlel jsem o sobě, ne jako o tanci a chaosu molekul, ale jako o stručné a nepatrné části tohoto majestátního procesu ...“

“When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.”

“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.”

“Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.”

“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.”

“There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.”

“Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.”

“In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.”

“It might have been supposed that the building of 30,000 miles of railways would have brought a measure of prosperity to India. But these railways were built not for India but for England; not for the benefit of the Hindu, but for the purposes of the British army and British trade.”

“I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality.”

“On the maturation of a woman* "She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore."”

“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 true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.”

“Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus.
You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.”

“Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth.”

“Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India.”

“There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.”

“Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.”

“When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.”

“On young love* "Here is a fulfillment of long centuries of civilization and culture; here, in romantic love, more than the triumph of thought or the victories of power is the topmost reach of human beings."”

“Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.”

“No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.”

“Philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science - problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science.”

“Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.”

“India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.”

“India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.”

“A sensation is the feeling of an external stimulus or an internal condition.”

“By mind I mean the totality of perceptions, memories and ideas in an organism.”

“Time, subjectively, is the conscious sequence of perceptions.”

“Space, subjectively, is the coexistence of perceptions — perceiving two objects at once.”