Will Durant Quotes

Initially, I studied philosophy, because it claimed to give you answers to the meaning of existence, but it didn't: It was basically a semantics game.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

Philosophy is an attempt by man to find cause and effect. Religion has the same goal.

Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

The two basic topics which fascinate me are 'What is reality?' and 'What constitutes the authentic human being?'

I didn't study English literature - I studied philosophy at university - so Kierkegaard, Nietzsche - these people are among the most important writers to me. So my interest is in the big questions more than it is in storytelling.

Of the opinions of philosophy I most gladly embrace those that are most solid, that is to say, most human and most our own; my opinions, in conformity with my conduct, are low and humble.

There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis - about the meaning of what we say - and there is all of this ... all of life.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions that don't seem to have an answer that everyone agrees on.

I had some hesitations about philosophy because, if you worked out a philosophical theory, it was hard to know whether you were going to be able to prove it or whether other theories had just as good a claim on belief.

I'm taking a philosophy class and regretting it with everything in me. I'm taking one college class per semester. Philosophy is studying what you already know and dismantling it. I thought it would be right up my alley. I can't tell you how much it's not me.

I took all the philosophy courses I could.

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.

Every day, I read books on philosophy and science fiction and human consciousness.

Philosophy … consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

I think, therefore I am.

My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.

I was interested in philosophy before I knew I was. That's to say, when I was at school, I used to argue with my friends about issues that turned out to be philosophical ones of some kind.

The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself.

Probably the only way Woody Allen and I are similar is that he has a lot to say about Nietzsche.

Quite early on, and certainly since I started writing, I found that philosophical questions occupied me more than any other kind. I hadn't really thought of them as being philosophical questions, but one rapidly comes to an understanding that philosophy's only really about two questions: 'What is true?' and 'What is good?'