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George Santayana Quotes - Page 17

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Spirituality lies in regarding existence merely as a vehicle for contemplation, and contemplation merely a vehicle for joy.

Spirituality lies in regarding existence merely as a vehicle for contemplation, and contemplation merely a vehicle for joy.

George Santayana
Spiritual, Lying, Joy
George Santayana (1936). “The Philosophy of Santayana”

The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them

George Santayana
Philosophy, Men, Mind
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.115, 谷月社

It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.

George Santayana
Philosophy, Advantage, Phylosophy
The Unknowable (1923)

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

George Santayana
Science, Common Sense, Perception
The Life of Reason: Reason in Science, Ch. 11

One of the peculiarities of recent speculation, especially in America, is that ideas are abandoned in virtue of a mere change of feeling, without any new evidence or new arguments. We do not nowadays refute our predecessors, we pleasantly bid them good-bye.

George Santayana
Ideas, Bye, America
George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.8, Sheba Blake Publishing

The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt, and though a thousand later considerations may overlay and override them, they remain a background and standard for all happiness. If we trace them out we succeed.

George Santayana
Happiness, Success, Succeed
"The The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society, Volume VII, Book Two".

Any attempt to speak without speaking any particular language is not more hopeless than the attempt to have a religion that shall be no religion in particular.... Every living and healthy religion has a marked idiosyncrasy. Its power consists in its special and surprising message and the bias which that revelation gives to life.

George Santayana
Giving, Healthy, Special

The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.

George Santayana
Reality, Imagination, Degrees
George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2015). “The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four”, p.70, MIT Press

If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters.

George Santayana
Despair, Ordinary, Fundamentals
George Santayana (1944). “Persons and Places”

The wonder of an artist's performance grows with the range of his penetration, with the instinctive sympathy that makes him, in his mortal isolation, considerate of other men's fate and a great diviner of their secret, so that his work speaks to them kindly, with a deeper assurance than they could have spoken with to themselves.

George Santayana
Fate, Artist, Men
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.357, 谷月社

There is a prodigious selfishness in dreams: they live perfectly deaf and invulnerable amid the cries of the real world.

George Santayana
Dream, Real, Selfishness
George Santayana (2009). “The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress”, p.274, The Floating Press

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

George Santayana
Military, Victory, Religion
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.39, 谷月社

To fight is a radical instinct; if men have nothing else to fight over they will fight over words, fancies, or women, or they will fight because they dislike each other's looks, or because they have met walking in opposite directions.

George Santayana
Fighting, Men, Opposites
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.55, 谷月社

The arts must study their occasions; they must stand modestly aside until they can slip in fitly into the interstices of life.

George Santayana
Art, Study, Occasions
George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.135, Courier Corporation

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
Change, Art, Memories
George Santayana (1986). “The Works of George Santayana”

To be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth ... these refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection to the mind.

George Santayana
Mind, Illusion, Harmony
George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.42, Sheba Blake Publishing

It would be hard to conceive a system of instincts more nicely adjusted, where the constituents should represent or support one another better. The husband has an interest in protecting the wife, she in serving the husband. The weaker gains in authority and safety, the wilder and more unconcerned finds a help-mate at home to take thought of his daily necessities. Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.

George Santayana
Children, Memories, Husband
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.33, 谷月社

Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.

George Santayana
Freedom, Artist, Interesting
George Santayana (2014). “Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion”, p.12, The Floating Press

It is a new road to happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn.

George Santayana
Happiness, Joy, Littles
George Santayana (2014). “Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion”, p.19, The Floating Press

Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.

George Santayana
Justice, Bars, Spirit
George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion”

When all beliefs are challenged together, the just and necessary ones have a chance to step forward and re-establish themselves alone.

George Santayana
Knowledge, Together, Steps
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.506, 谷月社

Imagination is potentially infinite. Though actually we are limited to the types of experience for which we possess organs, those organs are somewhat plastic. Opportunity will change their scope and even their center.

George Santayana
Inspirational, Opportunity, Imagination
George Santayana (1986). “The Works of George Santayana”

It is right to prefer our own country to all others, because we are children and citizens before we can be travellers or philosophers.

George Santayana
Country, Children, Citizens
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.263, Рипол Классик

At best, the true philosopher can fulfil his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat.

George Santayana
May, Pilots, Philosopher
George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.21, Sheba Blake Publishing

The strongest feelings assigned to the conscience are not moral feelings at all; they express merely physical antipathies.

George Santayana
Feelings, Moral, Strongest
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.256, Рипол Классик

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