Religion is the natural reaction of the imagination when confronted by the difficulties in a truculent world. — George Santayana Atheism Copy Share Image
If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them. — George Santayana Art Copy Share Image
Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. — George Santayana Atheism Copy Share Image
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are… — George Santayana Friends Copy Share Image
I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer. — George Santayana Chastity Copy Share Image
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. — George Santayana Flower Copy Share Image
Spirit itself is not human; it may spring up in any life... it may exist in all animals, and who know in… — George Santayana Animal 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 Ambition 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 Courage 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
“A habitual indulgence in the inarticulate is a sure sign of the philosopher who has not learned to think, the poet who… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally… — George Santayana Assurance Copy Share Image
I feel so much the continual death of everything and everybody, and have so learned to reconcile myself to it, that the… — George Santayana Death Copy Share Image
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of… — George Santayana Advertising Copy Share Image
There is nothing sacred about convention; there is nothing sacred about primitive passions or whims; but the fact that a convention exists… — 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 Accidents Copy Share Image
That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject. — George Santayana Fear Copy Share Image
... so in love the heart surrenders itself entirely to the one being that has known how to touch it. That being… — George Santayana Heart Copy Share Image
Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principals to trifles. — George Santayana Boston Copy Share Image
Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence. — George Santayana Comedy Copy Share Image
Nothing you can lose by dying is half as precious as the readiness to die, which is man's charter of nobility. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
“A good citizen must follow the movement of public affairs, so as to cast his vote intelligently, and know whether the party… — George Santayana Good citizen Copy Share Image
People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true. — 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
Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up. — George Santayana Achievement Copy Share Image
“A man is morally free when...he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity” — George Santayana Truth Copy Share Image
Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it… — George Santayana Accidents Copy Share Image
To be bewitched is not to be saved, though all the magicians and aesthetes in the world should pronounce it to be… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the… — George Santayana Crime Copy Share Image
Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are. — George Santayana Copy Share Image
A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present. — George Santayana Art Copy Share Image
Thought is essentially practical in the sense that but for thought no motion would be an action, no change a progress. — George Santayana Action Copy Share Image
“All conditions are bearable, all dignities trumpery, and wisdom simply the gift of making the best of whatever is thrust upon us.” — George Santayana Copy Share Image
In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of… — George Santayana Beauty Copy Share Image
Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace. — George Santayana Art Copy Share Image
Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said. — George Santayana Beauty Copy Share Image
It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion… — George Santayana Devil Copy Share Image
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine That lights the pathway but one step ahead Across a void of mystery and… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
I leave you but the sound of many a word In mocking echoes haply overheard, I sang to heaven. My exile made… — George Santayana Copy Share Image
