About Will Durant

William James Durant (1885 – 1981) was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, eleven volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, written in 1926, which one observer described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy." Dr. Durant’s other works include Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God, On the Meaning of Life, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, The Lessons of History, and The Heroes of History.

Will We Learn from Rome?

By |2021-04-14T12:15:57-05:00January 25th, 2012|Categories: Family, Featured, Rome, Will Durant, Wisdom|

The rise of Rome from a crossroads town to world mastery, its achievement of two centuries of security and peace from the Crimea to Gibraltar and from the Euphrates to Hadrian’s Wall, its spread of classic civilization over the Mediterranean and western European world, its struggle to preserve its ordered realm from a surrounding sea [...]

History Tells Us How Man Has Behaved for Six Thousand Years

By |2021-04-14T12:41:22-05:00January 13th, 2012|Categories: Featured, History, Quotation, Will Durant, Wisdom|

Other studies may tell us how man might behave, or how he should behave; history tells us how he has behaved for six thousand years. One who knows that record is in large measure protected in advance against the delusions and disillusionments of his time. He has learned the limitations of human nature, and bears [...]

Civilization: To be Learned and Earned

By |2020-12-11T17:08:19-06:00March 18th, 2011|Categories: Family, Featured, Liberal Learning, Quotation, Will Durant, Wisdom|

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again... Consider education not as the painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns, nor merely the necessary preparation of the individual to [...]

On a Legacy

By |2021-04-14T12:28:48-05:00February 23rd, 2011|Categories: Family, Featured, Quotation, Will Durant, Wisdom|

If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life. —The Lessons of History [...]

Go to Top