The Lessons of History
Will & Ariel Durant

Summary

Reasonably short read that talks about the lessons learned throughout history. ‘History repeats itself’ so it’s a good refresher that the world we live in today is really not that bad

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Notes

The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present rolled up for understanding

Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life

Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities

Freedom and equality are ever lasting enemies and when one permits, the other dies

Nature has 3 agents for restoring the balance of the food supply: famine, pestilence and war

It is not the race that makes the civilization, it is the civilization that makes the people

Positive human elements:

Action, fight, acquisition, association, mating, prenatal care

Negative human elements:

Sleep, fight, avoidance, privacy, refusal, Filial independence

It is good that the old should resist the young and the young prod the old as out of this tension comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement as a whole

Our generation has not rivalled the popularity of homosexualism in ancient Greece or Rome or Renaissance Italy

Disposition has been perennial and universal

Men and women have gambled at every age in history

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion

Men who can manage men manage the men who can only manage things, and the men who can manage money manage all

War or competition is the father of all things, the potent source of ideas, inventions, institutions and states

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