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Our Oriental Heritage
Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization | Will Durant
7 posts | 5 read | 2 to read
The Story of Civilization, Volume I: A history of civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the Death of Alexander, and in India, China, and Japan from the beginning; with an introduction on the nature and foundations of civilization. This is the first volume of the classic Pulitzer Prize-winning series.
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rmvanderpool7
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Not since Gibbon could such works of history exist. This first volumn I own two of; first because I own the set and second so I can let others borrow it.

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GoneFishing

Men look to love and life for everything; they receive a little less than that; they imagine that they have received nothing: these are the three stages of the pessimist.

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GoneFishing

There are not many things finer in our murderous species than this noble curiosity, this restless and reckless passion to understand.

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GoneFishing

NOTHING should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India. Here is a vast peninsula of nearly 2 million square miles; 2/3 as large as the U.S., and 20 times the size of its master, Great Britain; 320,000,000 souls, more than in all N. and S. America combined, or 1/5 the population of the earth; an impressive continuity of development and civilization from Mohenjo-daro, 2900 B.C. or earlier..

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GoneFishing

[N]o language has ever had a word for a virgin man.

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GoneFishing

The institutions, conventions, customs and laws that make up the complex structure of a society are the work of a hundred centuries and a billion minds; and one mind must not expect to comprehend them in one lifetime, much less in twenty years.

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GoneFishing

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave.
In the beginning of all cultures a religious faith conceals the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath