Quote

People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true.

George Santayana

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
People
Firmly
Opinions
Precious
Convinced
Usually
Opinion
True

More quotes by George Santayana

Image
A body seriously out of equilibrium, either with itself or with its environment, perishes outright. Not so a mind. Madness and suffering can set themselves no limit.
George Santayana
Image
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
Image
To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.
George Santayana
Image
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.
George Santayana
Image
America is a young country with an old mentality.
George Santayana
Image
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.
George Santayana
Image
What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
George Santayana
Image
For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old fashioned
George Santayana
Image
Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.
George Santayana
Image
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
George Santayana
Image
Men almost universally have acknowledged providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.
George Santayana
Image
The pride of the artisan in his art and its uses is pride in himself...It is in his skill and ability to make things as he wishes them to be that he rejoices.
George Santayana
Image
The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.
George Santayana
Image
Truth is a jewel which should not be painted over but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good light.
George Santayana
Image
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
Image
Man's most serious activity is play.
George Santayana
Image
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
George Santayana
Image
Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
George Santayana
Image
The arts must study their occasions they must stand modestly aside until they can slip in fitly into the interstices of life.
George Santayana
Image
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