Alec Rowell > Alec Rowell's Quotes

“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. ”
― John Gunther

“Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.”
― Will Durant

“Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
― Will Durant

“How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice. ”
― Will Durant

“Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.”
― Will Durant

“Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.”
― Will Durant

“When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.”
― Will Durant

“Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day”
― Will Durant

“Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.”
― Will Durant

“We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power? -is it better to be good, or to be strong?”
― Will Durant

“The past is not dead. Indeed, it is often not even past.”
― Will Durant

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

“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”
― Will Durant

“All that is good in our history is gathered in libraries. At this moment, Plato is down there at the library waiting for us. So is Aristotle. Spinoza is there and so is Kats. Shelly and Byron adn Sam Johnson are there waiting to tell us their magnificent stories. All you have to do is walk in the library door and the great company open their arms to you. They are so happy to see you that they come out with you into the street and to your home. And they do what hardly any friend will-- they are silent when you wish to think.”
― Will Durant

“Read, think well of mankind, go to our libraries and rejoice.”
― Will Durant

“But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly to Athens and Rhodes to exchange their oldest faith for the newest doubts.”
― Will Durant, Caesar and Christ

“but now and then liberty, in the slogans of the strong, means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.”
― Will Durant, Caesar and Christ

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

“Creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
― Arthur Koestler, Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955-1967

“The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”
― Arthur Koestler

“Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion. ”
― Arthur Koestler

“Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality.”
― Arthur Koestler

“The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.”
― Arthur Koestler

“I think most historians would agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost, the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes of a Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy or correct ideology. Heretics were tortured and burnt not in anger but in sorrow, for the good of their immortal souls. Tribal warfare was waged in the purported interest of the tribe, not of the individual. Wars of religion were fought to decide some fine point in theology or semantics. Wars of succession dynastic wars, national wars, civil wars, were fought to decide issues equally remote from the personal self-interest of the combatants.

Let me repeat: the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith or a political conviction. Man has always been prepared not only to kill but also to die for good, bad or completely futile causes. And what can be a more valid proof of the reality of the self-transcending urge than this readiness to die for an ideal?”
― Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine

“A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love. ”
― Pearl Buck

“You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”
― Pearl S. Buck

“The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members”
― Pearl S. Buck, My Several Worlds

“Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.”
― pearl s. buck

“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
― Pearl S. Buck