Story of Civilization Quotes

“In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“History is mostly guessing, the rest is prejudice.”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“One of the lessons of history is that the gods can be silent in many languages.”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“لأن الحب أمر ليس له وجود لأنه لما كانت العلاقة الجنسية أمراً مباحاً قبل الزواج، فإن عاطفة الرجل لا تجد من السدود ما يختزنها، وقلما يكون لها أثر في اختيار الزوجة؛ وللسبب نفسه، أعني تلاحق الشهوة وتنفيذها بغير فاصل من زمن، ليس لديهم ما يبرر أن يجلس الشاب مفكراً في طوية نفسه، في عاطفته التي احتبست في صدره والتي من أجل احتباسها أخذت تُزَين له الحبيب المُشتَهَى، مما يؤدي عادةً إلى الحب العاطفي عند الشباب؛ إن مثل هذا الحب وظهوره مرهون بالمدنية التي أقامت الأخلاق سدودا أمام الشهوة”
― ول ديورانت, Story of Civilization

“المدنية ليست إلا فترة عارضة موقوتة تتخلل وحشية الغابات”
― ويل دورنت, قصة الحضارة

“ليس هو الجنس العظيم الذي يصنع المدنيّة بل المدينة العظيمة هي التي تخلق الشعوب، لأن الظروف الجغرافية والاقتصادية تخلق ثقافته، والثقافة تخلق النمط الذي يصاغ عليه.”
― Will Durant, قصة الحضارة: نشأة الحضارة

“if you are alone, you are all your own; with a companion you are half yourself; so you squander yourself according to the indiscretion of your company.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“إن المتطرفين في عصر من العصور هم أنفسهم الرجعيون في العصر الذي يليه”
― ويل دورنت , قصة الحضارة

“In this loose structure law was weak, unpopular, and diverse. The people preferred to be ruled by custom, and to settle their disputes by face-saving compromises out of court. They expressed their view of litigation by such pithy proverbs as “Sue a flea and catch a bite,” or “Win your lawsuit, lose your money.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“Greece did not begin civilization—it inherited far more civilization than it began; it was the spoiled heir of three millenniums of arts and sciences brought to its cities from the Near East by the fortunes of trade and war. In studying and honoring the Near East we shall be acknowledging a debt long due to the real founders of European and American civilization.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“Their degeneration was even more rapid than their rise. Astyages, who succeeded his father Cyaxares, proved again that monarchy is a gamble, in whose royal succession great wits and madness are near allied. He inherited the kingdom with equanimity, and settled down to enjoy it. Under his example the nation forgot its stern morals and stoic ways; wealth had come too suddenly to be wisely used. The upper classes became the slaves of fashion and luxury, the men wore embroidered trousers, the women covered themselves with cosmetics and jewelry, the very horses were often caparisoned in gold.7 These once simple and pastoral people, who had been glad to be carried in rude wagons with wheels cut roughly out of the trunks of trees,8 now rode in expensive chariots from feast to feast.”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“الحضارة كالحياة صراع دائم مع الموت”
― ويل دورنت, قصة الحضارة

“إذا ما حكمنا على العظمة بما كان للعظيم من أثرٍ في الناس ؛ قلنا إن محمداً [ صلى الله عليه وسلم ] كان من أعظم عظماء التاريخ”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“ذلك أن الإنسان إذا ما بدأ يفكر في غده فقد خرج بذلك من جنة عدن إلى وادي الهموم، وحَلّت به صُفرة الغم، وهاهنا يشتد الجشع وتبدأ الملكية، ويزول البشر المتهلل الذي يعرفه الانسان الاول "الخلي من كل تفكير".”
― Will Durant, قصة الحضارة: نشأة الحضارة

“المدنية ليست شيئاً مجبولاً في فطرة الإنسان، كلا ولا هي شيء يستعصي على الفناء، إنما هي شيء لا بد أن يكتسبه كل جيل من الأجيال اكتساباً جديداً، فإذا ما حدث اضطراب خطير في عواملهاالاقتصادية أو في طرائق انتقالها من جيل إلى جيل فقد يكون عاملاً على فنائها.”
― Will Durant, قصة الحضارة: نشأة الحضارة

“old—about 2300 B.C.—the poets and scholars of Sumeria tried to reconstruct its ancient history. The poets wrote legends of a creation, a primitive Paradise and a terrible flood that engulfed and destroyed it because of the sin of an ancient king.11 This flood passed down into Babylonian and Hebrew tradition, and became part of the Christian creed. In 1929 Professor Woolley, digging into the ruins of Ur, discovered, at considerable depth, an eight-foot layer of silt and clay; this, if we are to believe him, was deposited during a catastrophic overflow of the Euphrates, which lingered in later memory as the Flood. Beneath that layer were the remains of a prediluvian culture that would later be pictured by the poets as a Golden Age.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“Bracelets, necklaces, anklets, finger-rings and ear-rings made the women of Sumeria, as recently in America, show-windows of their husbands’ prosperity.10”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“History, said Bacon, is the planks of a shipwreck; more of the past is lost than has been saved.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“25,000 B.C., the first of the postglacial industries, and the first known culture of Cro-Magnon Man. Bone tools—pins, anvils, polishers, etc.—were now added to those of stone; and art appeared in the form of crude engravings on the rocks, or simple figurines in high relief, mostly of nude women.”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“versions of Hippocrates’ Prognostics, Galen On Foods, and”
― Will Durant, The Complete Story of Civilization

“إنه لواجب علينا أن يحترم كلًا منا أوهام الآخر”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization