This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
Liberty |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
When people ask me to compare the century to older civilizations, I always say the same thing: The situation is normal.
Liberty |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
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.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.
Liberty |
In progressive societies the concentration 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.
To suppress minority thinking and minority expression would tend to freeze society and prevent progress. Now more than ever we must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.
Chance | Doubt | Freedom | Liberty | Nations | War | World |
No matter whose lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can’t stand discussion, let it crack.
The old Hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. - First, men were in chains that went back to an iron hand - then he saw them led by threads from the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. The first was despotism, iron, and ruling by force. - The last was civilization, ruling by ideas.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done. From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells; but I with mournful tread walk the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead.
Dignity | Individual | Law | Liberty | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wise |
There is a deep disorder in our society which comes not from the machinations of our enemies and from the adversities of the human condition but from within ourselves.
Advertising, in fact, is the effort of business men to take charge of consumption as well as production. They are not content to supply a demand, as the text-books say; they educate the demand as well. In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it would like. A bewildered child in a toy shop is nothing to the ultimate consumer in the world market of today. To say, then, that advertising is merely a way of calling attention to useful goods is a gorgeous piece of idealization. Advertising is in fact the weed that has grown up because the art of consumption is uncultivated.