George Santayana

He gave the world another world.

— George Santayana

Heaven is to be at peace with things.

— George Santayana

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

— George Santayana

Well-bred instinct meets reason halfway

— George Santayana

Memory... is an internal rumor.

— George Santayana

Art is a delayed echo.

— George Santayana

The Bible is literature, not dogma.

— George Santayana

Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.

— George Santayana

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

— George Santayana

What is false in the science of facts may be true in the science of values.

— George Santayana

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.

— George Santayana

Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.

— George Santayana

Intolerance is a form of egotism, and to condemn egotism intolerantly is to share it.

— George Santayana

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.

— George Santayana

The soul, too has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.

— George Santayana

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.

— George Santayana

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.

— George Santayana

To understand one's self is the classic form of consolation; to delude one's self is the romantic

— George Santayana

The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to…

— George Santayana

Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.

— George Santayana

The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.

— George Santayana

Nature drives with a loose rein and vitality of any sort can blunder through many a predicament in which reason would despair.

— George Santayana

If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.

— George Santayana

Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.

— George Santayana

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be…

— George Santayana

American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to…

— George Santayana

If you prefer illusions to realities, it is only because all decent realities have eluded you and left you in the lurch;…

— George Santayana

“Those were the two prerequisites, in my conception, to perfect friendship: capacity to worship and capacity to laugh. Modern life is not…

— George Santayana

. . . until the curtain was rung down on the last act of the drama (and it might have no last…

— George Santayana

What brings enlightenment is experience, in the sad sense of this word--the pressure of hard facts and unintelligible troubles, making a man…

— George Santayana

There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal, as if it were not a benefit and…

— George Santayana

Men have always been the victims of trifles, but when they were uncomfortable and passionate, and in constant danger, they hardly had…

— George Santayana

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction…

— George Santayana

“It would be easy, however, to exaggerate the havoc wrought by such artificial conditions. The monotony we observe in mankind must not…

— George Santayana

Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another, makes it one…

— George Santayana

Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that 'a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in…

— George Santayana

The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our…

— George Santayana

Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds…

— George Santayana

In the Gospels, for instance, we sometimes find the kingdom of heaven illustrated by principles drawn from observation of this world rather…

— George Santayana

There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us…

— George Santayana