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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

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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
Individual
Justified
Spirit
Accident
Form
Bars
Must
Accidents
Forms
Conscience
Justice
Society
Morally

More quotes by George Santayana

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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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For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old fashioned
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Facts are all accidents. They all might have been different. They all may become different. They all may collapse altogether.
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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.
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The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything.
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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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Catastrophes come when some dominant institution, swollen like a soap-bubble and still standing without foundations, suddenly crumbles at the touch of what may seem a word or idea, but is really some stronger material source.
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Existence is a miracle, and, morally considered, a free gift from moment to moment.
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Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions... Man, far from being freed from his natural passions, was plunged into artificial ones quite as violent and much more disappointing.
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The aim of education is the condition of suspended judgment on everything.
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The line between what is known scientifically and what has to be assumed in order to support knowledge is impossible to draw. Memory itself is an internal rumour.
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Eloquence is a republican art, as conversation is an aristocratic one.
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Columbus gave the world another world.
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Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
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A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
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To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career.
George Santayana
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There is nothing sacred about convention there is nothing sacred about primitive passions or whims but the fact that a convention exists indicates that a way of living has been devised capable of maintaining itself.
George Santayana
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A sanctity hangs about the sources of our being, whether physical, social, or imaginary.
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Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.
George Santayana
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Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.
George Santayana