Quotes by George Santayana

George Santayana

George Santayana

Spanish - American philosopher

Lived from: 1863 - 1952

Category: Philosophers Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 2 october 1863 Died: 16 september 1952

  • Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape; a spirit with any honor is not willing to live except in its own way, and a spirit with any wisdom is not over-eager to live at all.
  • Men become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.
  • The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.
  • The theatre, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history, because the medium has a kindred movement to that of real life, though an artificial setting and form.
  • By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.
  • The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.
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Quotes 1 till 20 of 104.

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  • Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.
    ― George Santayana
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  • It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape; a spirit with any honor is not willing to live except in its own way, and a spirit with any wisdom is not over-eager to live at all.
    ― George Santayana
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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.
    ― George Santayana
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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.
    ― George Santayana
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  • A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.
    ― George Santayana
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  • A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
    ― George Santayana
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  • All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets.
    ― George Santayana
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  • All thought is naught but a footnote to Plato.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
    ― George Santayana
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  • America is a young country with an old mentality.
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  • Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.
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  • Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principals to trifles.
    ― George Santayana
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  • By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
    ― George Santayana
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  • Consciousness is a very superficial thing.
    Letters of G. Santayana
    ― George Santayana
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  • Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean.
    The life of reason (1906)
    ― George Santayana
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from George Santayana?

The two most famous quotes from George Santayana are:

  • "Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better."
  • "It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig."

When did George Santayana live?

George Santayana was born in 1863 and died in the year 1952.