The state is the soul of man enlarged under the microscope of history.

— Will Durant

The story of the "bondage" in Egypt, of the use of the Jews as slaves in great construction enterprises, their rebellion and escape - or emigration - to Asia, has many internal signs of essential truth, mingled, of course, with supernatural interpolations customary in all the historical writings of the ancient East.

— Will Durant

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

— Will Durant

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

— Will Durant

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.

— Will Durant

[Voltaire] theoretically prefers a republic, but he knows its flaws: it permits factions which, if they do not bring on civil war, at least destroy national unity; it is suited only to small states protected by geographic situation, and as yet unspoiled and unborn with wealth; in general "men are rarely worthy to govern themselves." Republics are transient at best; they are the first form of society, arising from the union of families; the American Indians lived in tribal republics, and Africa is full of such democracies. But differentiation of economic status puts an end to these egalitarian governments; and differentiation is the inevitable accompaniment of development.

— Will Durant

[V]virtue is not news, and virtuous men, like happy nations, have no history.

— Will Durant

War does one good—it teaches people geography.

— Will Durant

We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.

— Will Durant

We are what we repeatedly do. Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit

— Will Durant