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George Santayana Quotes - Page 2

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To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

George Santayana
Patriotic, Soul, Patriotism
George Santayana, William G. Holzberger (2002). “The Letters of George Santayana”, p.192, MIT Press

The aim of education is the condition of suspended judgment on everything.

George Santayana
Education, Judgment, Aim

We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms.

George Santayana
Should Have, Illusion, Irrational
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.136, MIT Press

Man is not made to understand life, but to live it.

George Santayana
Life, Men, Made

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.

George Santayana
Wisdom, Understanding, Dignity
George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.532, Indiana University Press

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

George Santayana
Life, Predicaments, Spectacles
Articles and Essays

Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.

George Santayana
Men, Comforting, Opinion
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.108, 谷月社

Wisdom lies in taking everything with good humor and a grain of salt.

George Santayana
Lying, Grain Of Salt, Good Humor

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

George Santayana
Men, Historical, Language
The Life of Reason vol. 3, ch. 1 (1905)

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.

George Santayana
Vision, Intelligence, Awe
George Santayana (1970). “Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe”, p.19, Library of Alexandria

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.

George Santayana
Confused, Lying, Competition
George Santayana (1937). “The Works of 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 colours of life in all their purity.

George Santayana
Death, Dark, Birth

To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.

George Santayana
Taken, Passion, World
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.280, Рипол Классик

It is war that wastes a nations wealth, chokes its industries, kills its flower, narrows its sympathies, condemns it to be governed by adventurers, and leaves the puny, deformed, and unmanly to breed the next generation.

George Santayana
War, Flower, Generations
George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2013). “The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society, Volume VII, Book Two”, p.52, MIT Press

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

George Santayana
Life, Kindness, Philosophy

The earth has music for those who listen.

George Santayana
Music, Encouragement, Art

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

George Santayana
Happiness, Success, Education
George Santayana (1970). “Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe”, p.221, Library of Alexandria

Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.

George Santayana
Friendship, Buddhist, Men

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

George Santayana
Military, War, Philosophical

Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.

George Santayana
Order, Names, Confusion
George Santayana (1995). “Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government”, p.33, Transaction Publishers

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

George Santayana
Dream, Art, Design
Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 3

Happiness is impossible, and even inconceivable, to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, or fear. To be happy, you must be reasonable, or you must be tamed. You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy, you must be wise.

George Santayana
Wise, Taken, Passion

Life is judged with all the blindness of life itself.

George Santayana
Atheism, Life Is, Blindness
George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies”

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.

George Santayana
Love, Positive, Happiness
George Santayana (2009). “The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress”, p.1053, The Floating Press

Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age

George Santayana
Inspiration, Age, Youth
George Santayana (1953). “Persons and Places: My host the world”

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