Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.
—George Santayana
Topics: Knowledge
It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.
—George Santayana
Topics: War
Men become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.
—George Santayana
Topics: Superstition
I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.
—George Santayana
Topics: Facts
A man’s memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.
—George Santayana
Topics: Memory, The Past
There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.
—George Santayana
Topics: Doubt, Skepticism
Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.
—George Santayana
Topics: Prayer
The degree in which a poet’s imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.
—George Santayana
Topics: Reality
That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.
—George Santayana
Topics: Fear
Oaths are the fossils of piety.
—George Santayana
Topics: Profanity, Swearing, Vulgarity, Promises
The theatre, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history, because the medium has a kindred movement to that of real life, though an artificial setting and form.
—George Santayana
Topics: Theater
To the art of working well a civilized race would add that art of playing well.
—George Santayana
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity.
—George Santayana
Topics: Carpe-diem, Goals, Nature, Acceptance, Life, Simple Living, Living, Simplicity, Happiness, Aspirations, Death
A man’s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
—George Santayana
Topics: Patriotism
Depression is rage spread thin.
—George Santayana
Topics: Depression, One liners, Anger
The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age.
—George Santayana
Topics: Pride
We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, knowing that once it was all that was humanly possible.
—George Santayana
Topics: Past, The Past, Future
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
—George Santayana
Topics: Science
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
—George Santayana
Topics: War
Habit is stronger than reason.
—George Santayana
Topics: Habit, Habits
It is characteristic of spontaneous friendship to take on, without enquiry and almost at first sight, the unseen doings and unspoken sentiments of our friends; the part known gives us evidence enough that the unknown part cannot be much amiss.
—George Santayana
Topics: Friendship
The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.
—George Santayana
Topics: Difficulty, Education
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.
—George Santayana
Topics: Advertising
Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.
—George Santayana
Topics: Conscience
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
—George Santayana
Topics: Proverbial Wisdom, Quotations, Wisdom, Balance, Proverbs
Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.
—George Santayana
Topics: Inferiority
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
—George Santayana
Topics: Happiness, Experiment
The highest form of vanity is love of fame.
—George Santayana
Topics: Fame, Vanity
Nietzsche was personally more philosophical than his philosophy. His talk about power, harshness, and superb immorality was the hobby of a harmless young scholar and constitutional invalid.
—George Santayana
Topics: Philosophy
Every actual animal is somewhat dull and somewhat mad. He will at times miss his signals and stare vacantly when he might well act, while at other times he will run off into convulsions and raise a dust in his own brain to no purpose. These imperfections are so human that we should hardly recognise ourselves if we could shake them off altogether. Not to retain any dulness would mean to possess untiring attention and universal interests, thus realising the boast about deeming nothing human alien to us; while to be absolutely without folly would involve perfect self-knowledge and self-control. The intelligent man known to history flourishes within a dullard and holds a lunatic in leash. He is encased in a protective shell of ignorance and insensibility which keeps him from being exhausted and confused by this too complicated world; but that integument blinds him at the same time to many of his nearest and highest interests. He is amused by the antics of the brute dreaming within his breast; he gloats on his passionate reveries, an amusement which sometimes costs him very dear. Thus the best human intelligence is still decidely barbarous; it fights in heavy armour and keeps a fool at court.
—George Santayana
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Bahya ibn Paquda Jewish Philosopher
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
- Jacinto Benavente Spanish Dramatist
- Lope de Vega Spanish Playwright, Poet
- John Dewey American Philosopher
- William James American Philosopher
- Miguel de Cervantes Spanish Novelist
- Pablo Picasso Spanish Painter
- Will Durant American Historian, Philosopher
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