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Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

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
Study
Professional
Retained
Idea
Lawyer
Vested
Ideas
Philosopher
Detectives
Like
Illusion
Absorbed
Case
Eloquent
Usually
Defending
Cases
Lawyers
Philosophy
Philosophers
Apologists

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In a moving world readaptation is the price of longevity.
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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.
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Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things.
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Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.
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Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention.
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A way foolishness has of revenging itself is to excommunicate the world.
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A dream is always simmering below the conventional surface of speech and reflection.
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The mind of the Renaissance was not a pilgrim mind, but a sedentary city mind, like that of the ancients.
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The best men in all ages keep classic traditions alive
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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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There is nothing to which men, while they have food and drink, cannot reconcile themselves.
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A conception not reducible to the small change of daily experience is like a currency not exchangeable for articles of consumption it is not a symbol, but a fraud.
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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.
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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.
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. . . until the curtain was rung down on the last act of the drama (and it might have no last act!) he wished the intellectual cripples and the moral hunchbacks not to be jeered at perhaps they might turn out to be the heroes of the play.
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It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.
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Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.
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For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.
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Proofs are the last thing looked for by a truly religious mind which feels the imaginary fitness of its faith.
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Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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