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 DurantRead
In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the evolution of one's perspective on liberty and order over time.
Will Durant reflects on the transformation of his values from a youthful emphasis on freedom to an older appreciation for order. He suggests that true liberty cannot exist without a foundational structure of order, indicating that the balance between freedom and societal rules is essential for a harmonious life.
Themes
FreedomOrderLibertyYouthAgeDiscipline
In practice
Example use cases
During a college lecture on philosophy, quoting this to illustrate the development of personal values over a lifetime.
More from Will Durant
All quotes βThe greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.
Will DurantRead
If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
Will DurantRead
Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
Will DurantRead
If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.
Will DurantRead
When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
Will DurantRead
Similar quotes
Yes, President Romney will not take God off our coins. And that is so important because right now, just like God, the value of our currency really has to be taken on faith.
Stephen ColbertRead
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
Joni MitchellRead
Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.
Rene DaumalRead
Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, oneβs own and that of other people.
Leon TrotskyRead
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
Edmund BurkeRead
Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.
Victor HugoRead