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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
More quotes by George Santayana
The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism.
George Santayana
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
George Santayana
It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.
George Santayana
America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences.
George Santayana
Our character ... is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.
George Santayana
The world is not respectable it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.
George Santayana
Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana
Well-bred instinct meets reason halfway
George Santayana
The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt.
George Santayana
Life is not a spectacle or a feast it is a predicament.
George Santayana
The habit of looking for beauty in everything makes us notice the shortcomings of things, our sense, hungry for complete satisfaction, misses the perfection it demands.
George Santayana
Life is judged with all the blindness of life itself.
George Santayana
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
George Santayana
Docility is the observable half of reason.
George Santayana
... 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
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.
George Santayana
An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there.
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
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
Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age
George Santayana
