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Government is the political representative of a natural equilibrium, of custom, of inertia it is by no means a representative of reason.
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
Means
Political
Inertia
Government
Representative
Reason
Equilibrium
Mean
Custom
Representatives
Customs
Natural
More quotes by George Santayana
Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.
George Santayana
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
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
The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them
George Santayana
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.
George Santayana
The world is not respectable it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.
George Santayana
In each person I catch the fleeting suggestion of something beautiful and swear eternal friendship with that.
George Santayana
Animals are born and bred in litters. Solitude grows blessed and peaceful only in old age.
George Santayana
A dream is always simmering below the conventional surface of speech and reflection.
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
Nietzsche said that the earth has been a madhouse long enough. Without contradicting him we might perhaps soften the expression, and say that philosophy has been long enough an asylum for enthusiasts.
George Santayana
Poetry is an attenuation, a rehandling, an echo of crude experience it is itself a theoretic vision of things at arm's length.
George Santayana
Life is judged with all the blindness of life itself.
George Santayana
Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.
George Santayana
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
George Santayana
One of the peculiarities of recent speculation, especially in America, is that ideas are abandoned in virtue of a mere change of feeling, without any new evidence or new arguments. We do not nowadays refute our predecessors, we pleasantly bid them good-bye.
George Santayana
For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old fashioned
George Santayana
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
George Santayana
It is a new road to happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn.
George Santayana
We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms.
George Santayana
