Will Durant is not a very familiar name these days, even if he wrote The Story of Philosophy which sold 2 million copies and gave the new publishing house Simon and Schuster, a solid foundation and Will the financial freedom to do what he wanted.
He and his wife Ariel spent the next fifty years writing The Story of Civilization, an integral history or historiography of civilization written for the “common man”, selling in the end some 17 million books.
Together, they won the Pulitizer Prize as well as the Presidential medal of Freedom from President Ford.
Their work was as extraordinary as their lives, and well laid out at the Will Durant Foundation, like this taste of his wisdom.
on Death
What if it is for life’s sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.
On Love
All things must die, but love alone eludes mortality. It overleaps the tombs and bridges the chasm of death with generation. How brief it seems in the bitterness of disillusion; and yet how perennial it is in the perspective of mankind — how in the end it saves a bit of us from decay and enshrines our life anew in the youth and vigor of the child! Our wealth is a weariness, and our wisdom is a little light that chills; but love warms the heart with unspeakable solace, even more when it is given than when it is received.
On The Value Of Love
Youth, if it were wise, would cherish love beyond all things else, keeping body and soul clear for its coming, lengthening its days with months of betrothal, sanctioning it with a marriage of solemn ritual, making all things subordinate to it resolutely. Wisdom, if it were young, would cherish love, nursing it with devotion, deepening it with sacrifice, vitalizing it with parentage. Even though love consumes us in its service and overwhelms us with tragedy, even though it breaks us down with its passing and weighs us down with separations, let it be first.
Ariel was only 15 when she fell in love with her teacher Will and he with her. He resigned his position and married her.
What I most admire is their lifelong love, partnership and commitment that developed such a deep companionship “so that we almost have one breath, one life, one interest.”
They lived long fruitful lives and died within days of each other and are buried together.
