Ioannis Williams

“Noble character is now seldom found among those of noble birth, most of whom are good for nothing. ... Highly gifted families often degenerate into maniacs”
― Will Durant, Story of Civilization

“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.... The excess of liberty, whether in states or individuals, seems only to pass into slavery... and the most aggravated form of tyranny arises out of the most extreme form of liberty. When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. The rich, afraid that democracy will bleed them, conspire to overthrow it; or some enterprising individual seizes power, promises everything to the poor, surrounds himself with a personal army, kills first his enemies and then his friends "until he has made a purgation of the state," and establishes a dictatorship. In such a conflict of extremes the philosopher who preaches moderation and mutual understanding is like "a man fallen among wild beasts"; if he is wise he will "retire under the shelter of a wall while the hurrying wind and the storm go by.”
― Will Durant, The Life of Greece

“Like Solon, Sophocles counts that man most blessed who has never been born, and him next happiest who dies in infancy. . . . Thy portion esteem I highest, Who wast not ever begot; Thine next, being born, who diest, And straightway again art not.”
― Will Durant

“We badly needed ornaments for our room, and now we have them ready to our hand. I will have our drawings framed and covered with good glass, so that no one will touch them, and thus seeing them where we put them, each of us has a motive for taking care of his own. I arrange them in order round the room, each drawing repeated some twenty or thirty times, thus showing the author’s progress in each specimen, from the time when the house is merely a rude square, till its front view, its side view, its proportions, its light and shade are all exactly portrayed. These graduations will certainly furnish us with pictures, a source of interest to ourselves and of curiosity to others, which will spur us on to further emulation. The first and roughest drawings I put in very smart gilt frames to show them off; but as the copy becomes more accurate and the drawing really good, I only give it a very plain dark frame; it needs no other ornament than itself, and it would be a pity if the frame distracted the attention which the picture itself deserves. Thus we each aspire to a plain frame, and when we desire to pour scorn on each other’s drawings, we condemn them to a gilded frame. Some day perhaps “the gilt frame” will become a proverb among us, and we shall be surprised to find how many people show what they are really made of by demanding a gilt frame.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau