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
Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.
A soul is but the last bubble of a long fermentation in the world.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
Language is like money, without which specific relative values may well exist and be felt, but cannot be reduced to a common denominator.
Music is essentially useless, as is life.
Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.
Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies.
For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.
The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.
The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.
There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.
Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.