Authors:

George Santayana Quotes - Page 3

All Quotes Age Ambition Anxiety Art Atheism Authority Balance Beauty Change Character Chastity Children Common Sense Conformity Contemplation Country Criticism Death Dignity Dying Earth Education Effort Environment Eternity Evil Evolution Experience Faith Fate Feelings Freedom Friendship Giving God Grace Growth Happiness Harmony Hate Heart Heaven History Imagination Immortality Impulse Inspiration Inspirational Intuition Joy Judgment Justice Knowledge Language Liberty Life Love Lying Madness Memories Motivational Music Nature Opportunity Optimism Pain Passion Past Peace Philosophy Pleasure Progress Quality Reality Reflection Religion Science Simple Life Simplicity Skepticism Soul Spirituality Study Stupidity Suffering Surrender Time Truth Understanding Universe Vision War Wisdom Youth
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.

Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.

George Santayana
Happiness, Work, Character
George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2011). “The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, Volume VII, Book One”, p.135, MIT Press

Prayer is not a substitute for work; it is an effort to work further and be efficient beyond the range of one's powers.

George Santayana
Prayer, Effort, Range
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.132, 谷月社

My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

George Santayana
Atheist, Men, Insightful
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies "On My Friendly Critics" (1922)

There is no tyranny so hateful as a vulgar and anonymous tyranny. It is all-permeating, all-thwarting; it blasts every budding novelty and sprig of genius with its omnipresent and fierce stupidity. Such a headless people has the mind of a worm and the claws of a dragon.

George Santayana
Dragons, People, Stupidity
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.77, 谷月社

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect...

George Santayana
Skepticism, Intellect, Chastity
"Scepticism and Animal Faith". Book by George Santayana, 1923.

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

George Santayana
Vanity, Reputation, Fame
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.84, 谷月社

The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.

George Santayana
Religious, Atheist, Inspiration

Memory itself is an internal rumour.

George Santayana
Memories, Moments, Rumours
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.375, 谷月社

Each religion necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself. Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

George Santayana
Men, Historical, Rivals

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine That lights the pathway but one step ahead Across a void of mystery and dread.

George Santayana
Faith, Knowledge, Light
George Santayana (1936). “The Philosophy of Santayana”

Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.

George Santayana
Hate, Animal, Men
George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies”

It is wisdom to believe the heart.

George Santayana
Believe, Heart
George Santayana (1979). “The complete poems of George Santayana: a critical edition”, Associated Univ Pr

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.

George Santayana
Beautiful, Simplicity, Simple Life
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies "The Irony of Liberalism" (1922)

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.

George Santayana
Humor, Growth, Mind

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.

George Santayana
Stupid, Ideas, Brain
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.392, 谷月社

Depression is rage spread thin.

George Santayana
Depression, Depressing, Pain

Skepticism is a discipline fit to purify the mind of prejudice and render it all the more apt, when the time comes, to believe and to act wisely.

George Santayana
Believe, Discipline, Mind
George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Scepticism and animal faith. Some meanings of the word "is". Literal and symbolic knowledge. The unknowable”

To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career.

George Santayana
Education, Careers, Moral
George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.79, Sheba Blake Publishing

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

George Santayana
Fashion, Political, Innovation
1905-6 The Life of Reason,'Reason in Religion'.

Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions... Man, far from being freed from his natural passions, was plunged into artificial ones quite as violent and much more disappointing.

George Santayana
War, Passion, Ambition
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.272, Рипол Классик

Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.

George Santayana
Miracle, Religion, Causes
The Ethics of Spinoza introduction (1910)

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.

George Santayana
Nature, Soul, Conformity
George Santayana (2004). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.270, Cosimo, Inc.

If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them.

George Santayana
Artist, Unhappy, Doe
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.185, Рипол Классик

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

George Santayana
Writing History, Needs, Historian
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.378, 谷月社

love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.

George Santayana
Love, Death, Philosopher
George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.146, Courier Corporation

You May Also Like: