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Oaths are the fossils of piety.
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
Swearing
Fossils
Oath
Piety
Promise
Oaths
More quotes by George Santayana
The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt.
George Santayana
The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.
George Santayana
Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.
George Santayana
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.
George Santayana
Facts are all accidents. They all might have been different. They all may become different. They all may collapse altogether.
George Santayana
Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.
George Santayana
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.
George Santayana
It is rash to intrude upon the piety of others: both the depth and the grace of it elude the stranger.
George Santayana
O world, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art.
George Santayana
What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
George Santayana
Wisdom comes by disillusionment.
George Santayana
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
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
why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together.
George Santayana
Since barbarism has its pleasures it naturally has its apologists.
George Santayana
Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies.
George Santayana
To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language.
George Santayana
It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.
George Santayana
The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism.
George Santayana
An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there.
George Santayana
