Will Durant: On Atlantis

"We cannot entirely ignore the legends, current throughout history, of civilizations once great and cultured, destroyed by some catastrophe of nature or war, and leaving not a wrack behind...." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"[Heinnrich] Schliemann, the resurrector of Troy, believed that Atlantis had served as a mediating link between the cultures of Europe and Yucatan, and that Egyptian civilization had been brought from Atlantis." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"Possibly every discovery is a rediscovery." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"Certainly it is probable, as Aristotle thought, that many civilizations came, made great inventions and luxuries, were destroyed, and lapsed from human memory. History, said Bacon, is the planks of a shipwreck; more of the past is lost than has been saved. We console ourselves with the thought that as the individual memory must forget the greater part of experience in order to be sane, so the race has preserved in its heritage only the most vivid and impressive -- or is it only the best-recorded?" -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935