The Age of Voltaire: The Story of Civilization, Volume IX

by Will Durant

I perceive that the birth rate is the chief enemy of philosophy. We breed from the bottom and die at the top; and the fertility of simplicity defeats the activity of intelligence.

All restraint of instinct is unnatural, and yet without many such restraints society is impossible.

Progress in knowledge, science, comforts, and power is only progress in means; if there is no improvement in ends, purposes, or desires, progress is a delusion.

You were not a complete man, and so your philosophy was not complete.

I suspected that the new rulers would be much like the old, but with worse manners.

Truth is not truth unless it remains true through generations.

Again you confuse the outward sign with the inward grace.

There is nothing so shallow as sophistication; it judges everything from the surface, and thinks it is profound. All modern life has been misled by it.

History would be worthless to us if it did not teach us to keep on our guard against the natural intolerance of an orthodoxy wielding power.