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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

— Will Durant

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More quotes by Will Durant

It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment.

The Gentle Philosopher (2006)

Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.

The Story of Civilization (1935)

Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.

The Story of Civilization (1935)

I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature.

Transition (1927)

There is nothing in Greek civilization that does not illuminate our own.

The Story of Civilization (1935)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

One country, one constitution, one destiny.

Daniel Webster

Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Will Durant (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.