Quote

American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.

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
Seems
Optimism
Neutralize
America
Native
Solvent
May
Elements
Thoughtlessness
Every
However
Fuse
Good
Tough
Complacency
Life
Intellectual
Alien
Powerful
Aliens
American
Element

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Life is judged with all the blindness of life itself.
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A sanctity hangs about the sources of our being, whether physical, social, or imaginary.
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Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
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Fear first created the gods.
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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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Man is as full of potential as he is of importance.
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Man is a fighting animal his thoughts are his banners, and it is a failure of nerve in him if they are only thoughts.
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To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
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Habit is stronger than reason.
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A country without a memory is a country of madmen.
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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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Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
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