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We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms.

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
Vested
Illusions
Irrational
Religions
Abandon
Illusion

More quotes by George Santayana

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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.
George Santayana
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The idea of Christ is much older than Christianity.
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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.
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What brings enlightenment is experience, in the sad sense of this word--the pressure of hard facts and unintelligible troubles, making a man rub his eyes in his waking dream, and put two and two together. Enlightenment is cold water.
George Santayana
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In unphilosophical minds any rare or unexpected thing excites wonder, while in philosophical minds the familiar excites wonder also.
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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.
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Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
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The earth has music for those who listen.
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I have imagination, and nothing that is real is alien to me.
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To turn events into ideas is the function of literature.
George Santayana
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Music is essentially useless, as is life.
George Santayana
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Existence is a miracle, and, morally considered, a free gift from moment to moment.
George Santayana
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Nature is like a beautiful woman that may be as delightfully and as truly known at a certain distance as upon a closer view as to knowing her through and through that is nonsense in both cases, and might not reward our pains.
George Santayana
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Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.
George Santayana
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To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.
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History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.
George Santayana
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Man's most serious activity is play.
George Santayana
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An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there.
George Santayana
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Prayer is not a substitute for work it is an effort to work further and be efficient beyond the range of one's powers.
George Santayana
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Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana