“Other studies may tell us how we might behave, or how we should behave; history tells us how we have behaved for six thousand years. One who knows that record is in large measure protected in advance against the delusions and disillusionments of his times. He has learned the limitations of human nature, and bears with equanimity the faults of his neighbors and the imperfections of states. He shares hopefully in the reforming enterprises of his age and people; but his heart does not break, nor his faith in life fade out, when he perceives how modest are the results, and how persistently man remains what he has been for sixty centuries, perhaps for a thousand generations.”
From volume IV of the file · Book · 21st century
Themes: history · wisdom & folly
More from Will Durant
“I know that life is in its basis a mystery; a river flowing from an unseen source and in its development an infinite subtlety; a ‘dome of many-colored glass,’ too complex for thought, much less for utterance.
And yet the thirst for unity draws me eternally on. To chart the wilderness of experience and history, to bring into focus the future, the unsteady light of the past, to bring into significance and purpose the chaos of sensation and desire, to discover the direction of life’s majestic stream and thereby in some measure, perhaps, to control its flow: this insatiable metaphysical lust is one of the noble aspects of our questioning race. Our grasp is greater than our reach; but therefore our reach is made greater than our grasp.”
“Knowledge grows, but wisdom, though it can improve with years, does not progress with centuries. I cannot instruct Solomon.”