Authors:

George Santayana Quotes - Page 7

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
It is characteristic of spontaneous friendship to take on first, without enquiry and almost at first sight, the unseen doings and unspoken sentiments of our friends; the parts known give us evidence enough that the

It is characteristic of spontaneous friendship to take on first, without enquiry and almost at first sight, the unseen doings and unspoken sentiments of our friends; the parts known give us evidence enough that the unknown parts cannot be much amiss.

George Santayana
Friendship, Sight, Giving
George Santayana (1953). “Persons and Places: My host the world”

The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.

George Santayana
Mistake, Self, Cynical

People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true.

George Santayana
People, Opinion, Convinced
George Santayana (2011). “The Life of Reason: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense”, p.113, MIT Press

It is not society's fault that most men seem to miss their vocation. Most men have no vocation.

George Santayana
Men, Missing, Faults
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.64, MIT Press

Truth is a jewel which should not be painted over; but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good light.

George Santayana
Light, Jewels, May
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.65, MIT Press

A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.

George Santayana
Happiness, Happy, Determination
George Santayana (1945). “The Middle Span”

Tolerated people are never conciliated. They live on, but the aroma of their life is lost.

George Santayana
People, Aroma, Life Is
George Santayana (1995). “Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government”, p.436, Transaction Publishers

Reason and happiness are like other flowers; they wither when plucked.

George Santayana
Flower, Reason
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.199, 谷月社

Self-assurance is contemptible and fatal unless it is self-knowledge.

George Santayana
Confidence, Knowledge, Self

A simple life is its own reward.

George Santayana
Simple, Rewards, Life Is
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.203, 谷月社

The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.

George Santayana
Love, Beauty, Wisdom
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.30, 谷月社

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.

George Santayana
Infancy Is, Progress, Savages
George Santayana (2011). “The Life of Reason: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense”, p.172, MIT Press

I have no axe to grind; only my thoughts to burnish.

George Santayana
Grind, My Thoughts
George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.3, Sheba Blake Publishing

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

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

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality....The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.

George Santayana
Love, Memories, Passion

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

George Santayana
Spirit, Speak, Longing
George Santayana (1922). “Poems”

Does the thoughtful man suppose that...the present experiment in civilization is the last world we will see?

George Santayana
Art, Philosophy, Thoughtful

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

George Santayana
Insanity, Madness, Wonderful
George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.6, Рипол Классик

Wisdom comes from disillusionment.

George Santayana
Disillusionment

Art like life, should be free, since both are experimental.

George Santayana
Art, Artist, Should
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.332, 谷月社

The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal.

George Santayana
Art, Interesting, Effort
George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.320, 谷月社

Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.

George Santayana
Ignorance, Science, Facts
George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.78, Courier Corporation

There is nothing impossible in the existence of the supernatural: its existence seems to me decidedly probable.

George Santayana
Impossible, Existence, Seems
"The Genteel Tradition at Bay" (1931)

The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast on her character.

George Santayana
Philosophy, Character, Men
George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.61, Indiana University Press

In any close society it is more urgent to restrain others than to be free oneself. Hence the tendency for the central authority to absorb and supersede such as are local or delegated.

George Santayana
Authority, Tendencies, Oneself
George Santayana (1995). “Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government”, p.116, Transaction Publishers

You May Also Like: