Philosophy may describe unreasoning, as it may describe force; it cannot hope to refute them. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Truth is a jewel which should not be painted over; but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good… — George Santayana Advantage Copy Share Image
Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if… — George Santayana Brain Copy Share Image
The pride of the artisan in his art and its uses is pride in himself...It is in his skill and ability to… — George Santayana Ability Copy Share Image
There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the… — George Santayana Friends Copy Share Image
A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with… — George Santayana Freedom Copy Share Image
“There was a distinct class of these gentlemen tramps, young men no longer young, who wouldn't settle down, who disliked polite society… — George Santayana Poetry Copy Share Image
A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or as… — George Santayana Affection Copy Share Image
We are not compelled in naturalism, or even in materialism, to ignore immaterial things; the point is that any immaterial things which… — George Santayana Action Copy Share Image
The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt, and though a thousand later considerations may overlay and override them, they remain a… — George Santayana Affinity Copy Share Image
Imagination is potentially infinite. Though actually we are limited to the types of experience for which we possess organs, those organs are… — George Santayana Imagination Copy Share Image
Catastrophes come when some dominant institution, swollen like a soap-bubble and still standing without foundations, suddenly crumbles at the touch of what… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and… — George Santayana Character Copy Share Image
...science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common-sense rounded out and minutely articulated. It is therefore as much an instinctive product,… — George Santayana Action Copy Share Image
Before he sets out, the traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by travel. — George Santayana Dignity Copy Share Image
The Universe, so far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine; its extent, its order, its beauty, its… — George Santayana Beauty Copy Share Image
The man who would emancipate art from discipline and reason is trying to elude rationality, not merely in art, but in all… — George Santayana Art Copy Share Image
Nature in denying us perennial youth has at least invited us to become unselfish and noble. — George Santayana Environment Copy Share Image
Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Tolerated people are never conciliated. They live on, but the aroma of their life is lost. — George Santayana Aroma Copy Share Image
The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about. — George Santayana Exercise Copy Share Image
Boston was a moral and intellectual nursery, always busy applying first principles to trifles. — George Santayana Boston Copy Share Image
Every real object must cease to be what it seemed, and none could ever be what the whole soul desired. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Language is like money, without which specific relative values may well exist and be felt, but cannot be reduced to a common… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
It is in rare and scattered instants that beauty smiles even on her adorers, who are reduced for habitual comfort to remembering… — George Santayana Beauty Copy Share Image
Even under the most favorable circumstances no mortal can be asked to seize the truth in its wholeness or at its center. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
It is rash to intrude upon the piety of others: both the depth and the grace of it elude the stranger. — George Santayana Depth Copy Share Image
Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world. — George Santayana Events Copy Share Image
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experience. — George Santayana Happiness Copy Share Image
“The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about. Athletics… — George Santayana Exercise Copy Share Image
Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end. — George Santayana People Copy Share Image
“The contemporary world has turned its back on the attempt and even on the desire to live reasonably.” — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action, but beware of long arguments and long… — George Santayana Action Copy Share Image
A fanatical imagination cannot regard God as just unless he is represented as infinitely cruel. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace. — George Santayana Courage Copy Share Image
