Will Durant

Also known as William James "Will" Durant, William James Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885–1981)

AI overview

Will Durant was an American historian, philosopher, and writer who lived from 1885 to 1981 and became famous for making complex ideas accessible to general readers. He is best known for his multi-volume work "The Story of Civilization," which presented world history in an engaging, narrative style that brought historical knowledge to millions of people.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 1885
Died: 1981
Works: 134

Top works

廾世紀文豪看人生
The Story of Philosophy
الحضارة اليهودية
Lịch sử văn minh Trung Hoa
The Lessons of History

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Group
Origin: Nashville
Active from: 2006

Discography

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 983
Total plays: 13,115

William James Durant (November 5, 1885–November 7, 1981) was an American philosopher, historian, and writer. He is best known for his authorship and co-authorship with his wife Ariel Durant of The Story of Civilization. Life and Works Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts of French-Canadian parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, who had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States. He fought for equal wages, women's suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American lab

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Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Definition and Antagonism of Histamine H2-receptors
· 1972 · cited 1,849x
Reoptimization of MDL Keys for Use in Drug Discovery
· 2002 · cited 1,619x
Comparative Genomics of <i>Listeria</i> Species
· 2001 · cited 1,273x
Climate and the match or mismatch between predator requirements and resource availability
· 2007 · cited 774x
Mechanisms of activation of the transcription factor Nrf2 by redox stressors, nutrient cues, and energy status and the pathways through which it attenuates degenerative disease
· 2015 · cited 773x

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Quotes

“Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
“Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.”
“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.”
“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.”
“Philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science — problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.”
“Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth.”

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Wikidata facts

Image: Ariel and Will Durant.jpg

Show 5 more facts

date of birth: 1885-11-05
date of death: 1981-11-07
Commons category: Will Durant
name in native language: Will Durant
P12749: Karl Bartos

Sources (5)

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~16 min read

Article

William James Durant (/dəˈrænt/; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his eleven-volume work, The Story of Civilization, which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civilizations. It was written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant, and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy (1926), described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".

Durant conceived of philosophy as total perspective or seeing things sub specie totius (i.e., "from the perspective of the whole")—a phrase inspired by Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis, roughly meaning "from the perspective of the eternal". He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application. As a result of their success, he and his wife were jointly awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.