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A conception not reducible to the small change of daily experience is like a currency not exchangeable for articles of consumption it is not a symbol, but a fraud.

George Santayana

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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
Small
Symbol
Experience
Fraud
Change
Articles
Like
Consumption
Currency
Conception
Symbols
Reducible
Daily
Hype

More quotes by George Santayana

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Does the thoughtful man suppose that...the present experiment in civilization is the last world we will see?
George Santayana
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why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together.
George Santayana
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Truth is a jewel which should not be painted over but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good light.
George Santayana
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Imagination is potentially infinite. Though actually we are limited to the types of experience for which we possess organs, those organs are somewhat plastic. Opportunity will change their scope and even their center.
George Santayana
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History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.
George Santayana
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Perhaps the universe is nothing but an equilibrium of idiocies.
George Santayana
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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 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
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The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.
George Santayana
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Reason and happiness are like other flowers they wither when plucked.
George Santayana
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The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.
George Santayana
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Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.
George Santayana
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It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.
George Santayana
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The earth has music for those who listen.
George Santayana
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The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.
George Santayana
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The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.
George Santayana
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The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.
George Santayana
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People never believe in volcanoes until the lava actually overtakes them.
George Santayana
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Beauty is objectified pleasure.
George Santayana
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Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.
George Santayana
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The wonder of an artist's performance grows with the range of his penetration, with the instinctive sympathy that makes him, in his mortal isolation, considerate of other men's fate and a great diviner of their secret, so that his work speaks to them kindly, with a deeper assurance than they could have spoken with to themselves.
George Santayana