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Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.

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
Religions
Fairy
Tales
Conscience
Religion
Great

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The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.
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Proofs are the last thing looked for by a truly religious mind which feels the imaginary fitness of its faith.
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The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about.
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Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
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Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.
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Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape a spirit with any honor is not willing to live except in its own way, and a spirit with any wisdom is not over-eager to live at all.
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The same battle in the clouds will be known to the deaf only as lightning and to the blind only as thunder.
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Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
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People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true.
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One of the peculiarities of recent speculation, especially in America, is that ideas are abandoned in virtue of a mere change of feeling, without any new evidence or new arguments. We do not nowadays refute our predecessors, we pleasantly bid them good-bye.
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The truth properly means the sum of all true propositions, what omniscience would assert, the whole ideal system of qualities andrelations which the world has exemplified or will exemplify. The truth is all things seen under the form of eternity.
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In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess.
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To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language.
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To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
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For Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing.
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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.
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Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.
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It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.
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The works of nature first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke.
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