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
George Santayana quotes about
It is a new road to happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn.
Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.
Thought is essentially practical in the sense that but for thought no motion would be an action, no change a progress.
Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.
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.
Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.
To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.
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.
Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies.
Existence is a miracle, and, morally considered, a free gift from moment to moment.
Nature drives with a loose rein and vitality of any sort can blunder through many a predicament in which reason would despair.
What is false in the science of facts may be true in the science of values.
All spiritual interests are supported by animal life.
The same battle in the clouds will be known to the deaf only as lightning and to the blind only as thunder.