When I see the date you posted your query, I am ashamed at having taken so long to respond to it. The quote you are referring to was contributed to Dr. Durant's anthology on the search for "the meaning of life" by the renowned French philosopher and author, Andre Maurois, of whom Durant said: "The essay which Monsiour Maurois composed for our little symposium is a gem worthy of Voltaire or Anatole France."
The following quote -- which, taken out of context for the purpose of response -- concerns his allegory of man and ants. The passage is pessimistic, but Maurois in the following passage (not quoted here) redeems his pessimism and ends on a more positive note. However, as you asked about this quote specifically, here it is:
“This, my sisters, is what I have learned in observing men, the movements of the sand, and the courses of the stars. Having seen that all is vanity, I say to you: Why work? Why transport these bits of sand, these corpses of butterflies? Why traverse these dangerous deserts in long and toiling processions ? What will be the fruit of your labor on this earth? You will raise another generation of ants which in its turn will labor, suffer, and be crushed by the large feet of men. And these ants in turn will bring up other ants, even to that time -- infinitely far and infinitely near -- when the Earth will be only a dead world. Therefore I say to you: Stop; cease from this useless slavery; be no longer dupes. Know that there is no Great Ant above us, that progress is an illusion, that your desire to toil is but the result of heredity, that nothing is certain on the Earth except the defeat and death of the ants -- a sleep from which there is no awakening.”
Incidentally, this great book "On The Meaning Of Life" will be available shortly -- exclusively through our web site at first, and then through the various on-line book sellers such as Amazon.com.
Please keep checking in with us at Will Durant On-Line and we will keep you abreast of our publishing plans.
Thanks again for your inquiry and please accept my apologies for my delay in resonding.
