Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.

Meaning of the quote

The quote suggests that new ideas and ways of doing things often start with just one person, even if they go against the usual way of doing things. Over time, what was once unusual can become the new normal or custom. So the things we consider normal today may have begun as something different or even unconventional in the past.

About Will Durant

Will Durant was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his 11-volume work The Story of Civilization, which detailed the history of Eastern and Western civilizations. He was also noted for his groundbreaking work The Story of Philosophy, which helped popularize philosophy. Durant and his wife Ariel were awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their collaborative efforts.

More about the author

More quotes from Will Durant

Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Education is the transmission of civilization.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The family is the nucleus of civilization.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It’s the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

I am not against hasty marriages, where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)

We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street an Broadway.

Will Durant

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885-1981)