Quote

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

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
Eating
Salutations
Knowledge
Devour
Cannot
Absent
Mean
Nasty
Something
Possess
Recognition
Embrace
Expect
Salutation

More quotes by George Santayana

Image
He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.
George Santayana
Image
Self-assurance is contemptible and fatal unless it is self-knowledge.
George Santayana
Image
Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.
George Santayana
Image
Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention.
George Santayana
Image
Fear first created the gods.
George Santayana
Image
Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.
George Santayana
Image
I have imagination, and nothing that is real is alien to me.
George Santayana
Image
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
Image
Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.
George Santayana
Image
Wisdom lies in taking everything with good humor and a grain of salt.
George Santayana
Image
A friend's only gift is himself.
George Santayana
Image
Since barbarism has its pleasures it naturally has its apologists.
George Santayana
Image
Perhaps the universe is nothing but an equilibrium of idiocies.
George Santayana
Image
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
Image
It is rash to intrude upon the piety of others: both the depth and the grace of it elude the stranger.
George Santayana
Image
The soul, too has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.
George Santayana
Image
Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.
George Santayana
Image
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
George Santayana
Image
Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.
George Santayana
Image
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
George Santayana