William Crapo “Billy” Durant (1861–1947) was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry, who created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars; and the co-founder of General Motors with Frederic L. Smith, and of Chevrolet with Louis Chevrolet. He also founded Frigidaire.
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Never put a man in the wrong. He will hold it against you forever.
—William C. Durant
The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It’s the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.
—William C. Durant
Education is the transmission of civilization.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Education
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Youth
Ultimately, our troubles are due to dogma and deduction; we find no new truth because we take some venerable but questionable proposition as the indubitable starting point, and never think of putting this assumption itself to a test of observation or experiment.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Truth
The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Health
When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Order
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
—William C. Durant
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.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Forgiveness
To seek, beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony of things.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Harmony
As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.
—William C. Durant
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Integrity
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
—William C. Durant
Topics: History
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Education, Wisdom, Progress, Discover
The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought; superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Business
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
What better way is there no make men love one another than to make men understand one another. True charity comes only with clarity-just as mercy is but justice that understands. Surely the root of all evil is the inability to see clearly that which is.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Understanding
Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Knowledge, Desire
The family is the nucleus of civilization.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Family
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes, rather than their minds.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Thinking, Acceptance, Hope
Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
—William C. Durant
Topics: Wisdom
To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
—William C. Durant
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
—William C. Durant
Civilization is the order and freedom promoting cultural activity.
—William C. Durant
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