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Man is as full of potential as he is of importance.

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
Men
Potential
Importance
Full

More quotes by George Santayana

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To be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth ... these refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection to the mind.
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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.
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Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
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To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
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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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Oaths are the fossils of piety.
George Santayana
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Eloquence is a republican art, as conversation is an aristocratic one.
George Santayana
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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
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It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
George Santayana
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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.
George Santayana
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We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms.
George Santayana
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We are not compelled in naturalism, or even in materialism, to ignore immaterial things the point is that any immaterial things which are recognized shall be regarded as names, aspects, functions, or concomitant products of those physical things among which action goes on.
George Santayana
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Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
George Santayana
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Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.
George Santayana
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Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
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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.
George Santayana
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It is always pleasant to be urged to do something on the ground that one can do it well.
George Santayana
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America is a young country with an old mentality.
George Santayana
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What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
George Santayana
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Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude itself is, in one sense, overcome.
George Santayana