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To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
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
War
Love
Debauchery
Like
Soil
Calling
Courage
Virtue
Politics
Call
More quotes by George Santayana
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
why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together.
George Santayana
Fear first created the gods.
George Santayana
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
Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
George Santayana
Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.
George Santayana
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
Man's most serious activity is play.
George Santayana
It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.
George Santayana
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
Each religion, so dear to those whose life it sanctifies, and fulfilling so necessary a function in the society that has adopted it, necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself.
George Santayana
Old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird's chirp.
George Santayana
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
What is false in the science of facts may be true in the science of values.
George Santayana
Life is judged with all the blindness of life itself.
George Santayana
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
Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.
George Santayana
Habit is stronger than reason.
George Santayana
There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.
George Santayana
Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.
George Santayana
