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
Manhood and sagacity ripen of themselves; it suffices not to repress or distort them.
The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast on her character.
My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer fiction, if the material events which mark and ballast my career had not their public dates and characters scientifically discoverable.
The traveller must be somebody and come from somewhere, so that his definite character and moral traditions may supply an organ and a point of comparison for his observations.
Our character ... is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.
A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character.
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
England is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies, and humors
England is not the best possible world but it is the best actual country, and a great rest after America
Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.
Sanity is a madness put to good uses
Sanity is a madness put to good use.
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine then out of a prig
Philosophers are as jealous as women; each wants a monopoly of praise