Fallen Leaves - by Will Durant
ISBN: 9781476771557Date read: 2021-06-15
How strongly I recommend it: 2/10
(See my list of 360+ books, for more.)
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
I usually love his writing style and philosophical historical perspective, but unfortunately in this book I loved neither.
my notes
Our grasp is greater than our reach; but therefore our reach is made greater than that grasp.
Our children bring us up by showing us, through imitation, what we really are.
A man is as young as the risks he takes.
Noise is the vital medium of youth.
To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content.
Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do.
Happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.
In Utopia, each would build his own home.
Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life.
Discovering the world, youth discovers evil, and is horrified to learn the nature of his species.
The principle of the family was mutual aid, but the principle of society is competition, the struggle for existence, the elimination of the weak and the survival of the strong.
Youth, shocked, rebels, and calls upon the world to make itself a family, and give to youth the welcome and protection and comradeship of the home.
Then slowly youth is drawn into the gamble of this individualistic life.
The zest of the game creeps into the blood.
Acquisitiveness is aroused and stretches out both hands for gold and power.
The rebellion ends.
The game goes on.
We are living flames of desire until we admit final defeat.
Character is the sum of our desires, fears, propensities, habits, abilities, and ideas.