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A dream is always simmering below the conventional surface of speech and reflection.

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
Always
Simmering
Conventional
Reflection
Surface
Fantasy
Speech
Dream

More quotes by George Santayana

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Music is essentially useless, as life is but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.
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I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.
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There must ... be in our very nature a very radical and widespread tendency to observe beauty, and to value it. No account of the principles of the mind can be at all adequate that passes over so conspicuous a faculty.
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Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world.
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The soul, too has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.
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Memory itself is an internal rumour.
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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.
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What better comfort have we, or what other Profit in living Than to feed, sobered by the truth of Nature, Awhile upon her beauty, And hand her torch of gladness to the ages Following after?
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Well-bred instinct meets reason halfway
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Prayer is not a substitute for work it is an effort to work further and be efficient beyond the range of one's powers.
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A way foolishness has of revenging itself is to excommunicate the world.
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Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
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It is in rare and scattered instants that beauty smiles even on her adorers, who are reduced for habitual comfort to remembering her past favours.
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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.
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We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.
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The fly that prefers sweetness to a long life may drown in honey.
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It is always pleasant to be urged to do something on the ground that one can do it well.
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What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
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For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old fashioned
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A friend's only gift is himself.
George Santayana