George Santayana Quotes - Page 14

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• Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

  George Santayana

  Thinking, Firsts, Surrender

  Scepticism and Animal Faith ch. 9 (1923)

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• Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

  George Santayana

  Mean, Recognition, Nasty

  George Santayana (2011). “The Life of Reason: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense”, p.48, MIT Press

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• At best, the true philosopher can fulfil his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat.

  George Santayana

  May, Pilots, Philosopher

  George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.21, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• 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 philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.' At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

  George Santayana

  God, Philosophy, Men

  George Santayana (1954). “The Life of Reason ; Or, The Phases of Human Progress. One-volume Ed”

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• Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.

  George Santayana

  Sacrifice, Making Sacrifices, Sacrifice For Others

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.70, Courier Corporation

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• Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  George Santayana

  Change, Wisdom, Memories

  The Life of Reason vol. 1, ch. 12 (1905)

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• O world, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art.

  George Santayana

  Wise, Art, Believe

  George Santayana (1979). “The complete poems of George Santayana: a critical edition”, Associated Univ Pr

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• The Universe, so far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine; its extent, its order, its beauty, its cruelty, makes it alike impressive.

  George Santayana

  Order, Space, Wonderful

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2014). “The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Religion, Volume VII, Book Three”, p.114, MIT Press

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• Love, whether sexual, parental, or fraternal, is essentially sacrificial, and prompts a man to give his life for his friends.

  George Santayana

  Love, Men, Giving

  George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.99, Рипол Классик

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• Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.

  George Santayana

  Beautiful, Mean, Men

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• Nietzsche said that the earth has been a madhouse long enough. Without contradicting him we might perhaps soften the expression, and say that philosophy has been long enough an asylum for enthusiasts.

  George Santayana

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Expression

  George Santayana (1998). “The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays”, p.116, U of Nebraska Press

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• A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or as the consciousness of a right life, can quicken us from within.

  George Santayana

  Happiness, Nature, Grateful

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.68, Courier Corporation

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• I leave you but the sound of many a word In mocking echoes haply overheard, I sang to heaven. My exile made me free, from world to world, from all worlds carried me.

  George Santayana

  Echoes, Heaven, Sound

  George Santayana (1979). “The complete poems of George Santayana: a critical edition”, Associated Univ Pr

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• It is the acme of life to understand life.

  George Santayana

  Life

  George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.143, Рипол Классик

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• A buoyant and full-blooded soul has quick senses and miscellaneous sympathies: it changes with the changing world; and when not too much starved or thwarted by circumstances, it finds all things vivid and comic. Life is free play fundamentally and would like to be free play altogether.

  George Santayana

  Play, Soul, World

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies”

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• Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another, makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solicitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty?

  George Santayana

  Love, Sex, Powerful

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.39, Courier Corporation

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• By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

  George Santayana

  Nature, Men, Questions And Answers

  George Santayana (2011). “The Life of Reason: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense”, p.86, MIT Press

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• What brings enlightenment is experience, in the sad sense of this word--the pressure of hard facts and unintelligible troubles, making a man rub his eyes in his waking dream, and put two and two together. Enlightenment is cold water.

  George Santayana

  Dream, Eye, Men

  George Santayana (1998). “The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays”, p.139, U of Nebraska Press

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• The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.

  George Santayana

  Progress, May, Evolution

  George Santayana (1970). “Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe”, p.151, Library of Alexandria

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• America is a young country with an old mentality.

  George Santayana

  Country, America, Young

  George Santayana (1998). “The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays”, p.39, U of Nebraska Press

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• Uselessness is a fatal accusation to bring against any act which is done for its presumed utility, but those which are done for their own sake are their own justification.

  George Santayana

  Experience, Done, Sake

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.18, Courier Corporation

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• Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.

  George Santayana

  Long, Poetry, Ancient

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2015). “The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four”, p.58, MIT Press

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

  George Santayana

  Fate, Justice, World

  George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.67, 谷月社

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• Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being overlooked, and saying to the forgetful public, Here I am! Or perhaps they are rival lightning rods, saying to the emanations of divine grace, "Please strike here!

  George Santayana

  Hands, Here I Am, Grace

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• The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.

  George Santayana

  Suffering, Institutions, Rational

  George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.424, Indiana University Press

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