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In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess.

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
Raised
Passion
Beauty
Silenced
Happy
Contemplation
Good
Passions
Possess
Recognition
Seek

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Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.
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Advertising is the modern substitute for argument its function is to make the worse appear the better.
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The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.
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Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
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He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.
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The tendency to gather and to breed philosophers in universities does not belong to ages of free and humane reflection: it is scholastic and proper to the Middle Ages and to Germany.
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In each person I catch the fleeting suggestion of something beautiful and swear eternal friendship with that.
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Truth is a jewel which should not be painted over but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good light.
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It is in rare and scattered instants that beauty smiles even on her adorers, who are reduced for habitual comfort to remembering her past favours.
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The man who would emancipate art from discipline and reason is trying to elude rationality, not merely in art, but in all existence.
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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.
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Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
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Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of others.
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When a man's life is over, it remains true that he was one sort of man and not another. A man who understands himself under the form of eternity knows the quality that eternally belongs to him, and knows that he cannot wholly die, even if he would, for when the movement of his life is over, the truth of his life remains.
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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.
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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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To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation to elude oneself is the romantic.
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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.
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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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