American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism. George Santayana More Quotes by George Santayana More Quotes From George Santayana The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding. George Santayana eye heart men Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies. George Santayana harmony elements intellectual Wisdom comes by disillusionment. George Santayana disillusionment words-of-wisdom wisdom Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public. George Santayana ancient poetry long Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet religion, for all its poetic motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to the heart of things. George Santayana heart men religion Religion is the love of life in the consciousness of impotence. George Santayana love-life consciousness religion Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one's fine feelings, on one's indomitable optimism and trust in life. George Santayana optimism feelings religion Guard you thoughts as you would your wallet. George Santayana stronger habit reason America is a young country with an old mentality. George Santayana young country america It would be hard to conceive a system of instincts more nicely adjusted, where the constituents should represent or support one another better. The husband has an interest in protecting the wife, she in serving the husband. The weaker gains in authority and safety, the wilder and more unconcerned finds a help-mate at home to take thought of his daily necessities. Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality. George Santayana husband memories children In the concert of nature it is hard to keep in tune with oneself if one is out of tune with everything else George Santayana oneself concerts tunes The family is an early expedient and in many ways irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a division of labor would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family. George Santayana family race class There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place. George Santayana regret real past To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. George Santayana patriotism patriotic soul To reform means to shatter one form and to create another; but the two sides of this act are not always equally intended nor equally successful. George Santayana two-sides successful mean History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory. George Santayana memories history I leave you but the sound of many a word In mocking echoes haply overheard, I sang to heaven. My exile made me free, from world to world, from all worlds carried me. George Santayana echoes sound heaven Language is like money, without which specific relative values may well exist and be felt, but cannot be reduced to a common denominator. George Santayana relative-value common may The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be. George Santayana contradiction moments world Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily. George Santayana free-speech dignity internet
