Quote

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude itself is, in one sense, overcome.

George Santayana

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Santayana
Age: 88 †
Born: 1863
Born: October 2
Died: 1952
Died: September 16
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Madrid
Spain
Jorge Santayana
Jorge Augustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana
Jorge Augustin Nicolas Ruiz de Santayana
George Santayana
Terrorism
Overcoming
Terror
Sense
Finitude
Men
Inferiority
Selfishness
Overcome
Selfish

More quotes by George Santayana

Image
... even if Lucretius was wrong, and the soul is immortal, it is nevertheless steadily changing its interests and its possessions.Our lives are mortal if our soul is not and the sentiment which reconciled Lucretius to death is as much needed if we are to face many deaths, as if we are to face only one.
George Santayana
Image
Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.
George Santayana
Image
Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.
George Santayana
Image
Language is like money, without which specific relative values may well exist and be felt, but cannot be reduced to a common denominator.
George Santayana
Image
The aim of education is the condition of suspended judgment on everything.
George Santayana
Image
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
George Santayana
Image
People never believe in volcanoes until the lava actually overtakes them.
George Santayana
Image
The family is one of nature's masterpieces.
George Santayana
Image
A body seriously out of equilibrium, either with itself or with its environment, perishes outright. Not so a mind. Madness and suffering can set themselves no limit.
George Santayana
Image
The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.
George Santayana
Image
Life is not a spectacle or a feast it is a predicament.
George Santayana
Image
When a man's life is over, it remains true that he was one sort of man and not another. A man who understands himself under the form of eternity knows the quality that eternally belongs to him, and knows that he cannot wholly die, even if he would, for when the movement of his life is over, the truth of his life remains.
George Santayana
Image
Man is as full of potential as he is of importance.
George Santayana
Image
Man is a fighting animal his thoughts are his banners, and it is a failure of nerve in him if they are only thoughts.
George Santayana
Image
History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.
George Santayana
Image
Eloquence is a republican art, as conversation is an aristocratic one.
George Santayana
Image
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
George Santayana
Image
American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.
George Santayana
Image
It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.
George Santayana
Image
The Fates, like an absent-minded printer, seldom allow a single line to stand perfect and unmarred.
George Santayana