George Santayana
George Santayana
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Originally from Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. At the age of forty-eight, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth16 December 1863
CityMadrid, Spain
CountrySpain
Memory itself is an internal rumour.
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.
A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or as the consciousness of a right life, can quicken us from within.
The soul, too has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.
Each religion necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself. Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
The sophisticated concern about art sinks before a spontaneous love of reality, and I thank the photograph for being so transparent a vehicle for things...
Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.
If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.
As widowers proverbially marry again, so a man with the habit of friendship always finds new friends.
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.
Animals are born and bred in litters. Solitude grows blessed and peaceful only in old age.
Tolerated people are never conciliated. They live on, but the aroma of their life is lost.
It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.
Even under the most favorable circumstances no mortal can be asked to seize the truth in its wholeness or at its center.