For Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religion is the natural reaction of the imagination when confronted by the difficulties in a truculent world. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
“faith in the intellect...is the only faith yet sanctioned by its fruits” — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Proofs are the last thing looked for by a truly religious mind which feels the imaginary fitness of its faith. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
What renders man an imaginative and moral being is that in society he gives new aims to his life which could not… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine… If we dramatize its life and conceive… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape; a spirit with any… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one's fine… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Spirituality lies in regarding existence merely as a vehicle for contemplation, and contemplation merely a vehicle for joy. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Each religion necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself. Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Truth is one of the realities covered in the eclectic religion of our fathers by the idea of God. Awe very properly… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
An operation that eventually kills may be technically successful, and the man may die cured; and so a description of religion thatshowed… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
To drink in the spirit of a place you should be not only alone but unhurried. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet religion, for all… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
The combative instinct is a savage prompting by which one man's good is found in another's evil. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language. — George Santayana 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
The pride of the artisan in his art and its uses is pride in himself...It is in his skill and ability to make things… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth. — George Santayana 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 he had… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Experience is a mere whiff or rumble, produced by enormously complex and ill-deciphered causes of experience; and in the other direction, experience is a… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
