---
title: "1 Romanticist Quotes By George Santayana"
description: "1 Romanticist quotes by George Santayana. Plus more from George Santayana and more Romanticist sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f25/george-santayana-478_barbarism_now-the-zest-of-romanticism-consists-in_2115402.jpg"
---

> [“Now the zest of romanticism consists in taking what you know is an independent and ancient world as if it were material for your private emotions. The savage or the animal, who should not be aware of nature or history…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/now-the-zest-of-romanticism-consists-in-taking-what-you-know-is-an/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f25/george-santayana-478_barbarism_now-the-zest-of-romanticism-consists-in_2115402.jpg)

## More by George Santayana

> [Perhaps the universe is nothing but an equilibrium of idiocies.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/perhaps-the-universe-is-nothing-but-an-equilibrium-of-idiocies/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [The combative instinct is a savage prompting by which one man's good is found in another's evil.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/the-combative-instinct-is-a-savage-prompting-by-which-one-man-s-good/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Sanctity and genius are as rebellious as vice.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/sanctity-and-genius-are-as-rebellious-as-vice/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/to-attempt-to-be-religious-without-practicing-a-specific-religion-is/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [“The contemporary world has turned its back on the attempt and even on the desire to live reasonably.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/the-contemporary-world-has-turned-its-back-on-the-attempt-and-even-on/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/the-pride-of-the-artisan-in-his-art-and-its-uses-is-pride-in-himself/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/if-pain-could-have-cured-us-we-should-long-ago-have-been-saved/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/towers-in-a-modern-town-are-a-frill-and-a-survival-they-seem-like-the/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/wealth-religion-military-victory-have-more-rhetorical-than/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if he had…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/whoever-it-was-who-searched-the-heavens-with-a-telescope-and-found-no/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/it-is-easier-to-make-a-saint-out-of-a-libertine-than-out-of-a-prig/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/experience-is-a-mere-whiff-or-rumble-produced-by-enormously-complex/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/miracles-are-propitious-accidents-the-natural-causes-of-which-are-too/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Memory itself is an internal rumour; and when to this hearsay within the mind we add the falsified echoes that reach us from others,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/memory-itself-is-an-internal-rumour-and-when-to-this-hearsay-within/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

> [Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-santayana/familiarity-breeds-contempt-only-when-it-breeds-inattention/)

[George Santayana](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-santayana/)

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                        "text": "“Now the zest of romanticism consists in taking what you know is an independent and ancient world as if it were material for your private emotions. The savage or the animal, who should not be aware of nature or history at all, could not be romantic about them, nor about himself. He would be blandly idiotic, and take everything quite unsuspectingly for what it was in him. The romanticist, then, should be a civilized man, so that his primitiveness and egotism may have something paradoxical and conscious about them; and so that his life may contain a rich experience, and his reflection may play with all varieties of sentiment and thought. At the same time, in his inmost genius, he should be a barbarian, a child, a transcendentalist, so that his life may seem to him absolutely fresh, self-determined, unforeseen, and unforeseeable. It is part of his inspiration to believe that he creates a new heaven and a new earth with each revolution in his moods or in his purposes. He ignores, or seeks to ignore, all the conditions of life, until perhaps by living he personally discovers them. Like Faust, he flouts science, and is minded to make trial of magic, which renders a man’s will master of the universe in which he seems to live. He disowns all authority, save that mysteriously exercised over him by his deep faith in himself. He is always honest and brave; but he is always different, and absolves himself from his past as soon as he has outgrown or forgotten it. He is inclined to be wayward and foolhardy, justifying himself on the ground that all experience is interesting, that the springs of it are inexhaustible and always pure, and that the future of his soul is infinite. In the romantic hero the civilized man and the barbarian must be combined; he should be the heir to all civilization, and, nevertheless, he should take life arrogantly and egotistically, as if it were an absolute personal experiment.”",
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