Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them. George Santayana More Quotes by George Santayana More Quotes From George Santayana Animals are born and bred in litters. Solitude grows blessed and peaceful only in old age. George Santayana peacefulblessedanimal Order, for a liberal, means only peace; and the hope of a profound peace was one of the chief motives in the liberal movement. Concessions and tolerance and equality would thus have really led to peace, and to peace of the most radical kind, the peace of moral extinction. George Santayana profoundordermean Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace. George Santayana peacelifeart Poetry is an attenuation, a rehandling, an echo of crude experience; it is itself a theoretic vision of things at arm's length. George Santayana armsechoesvision Plasticity loves new moulds because it can fill them, but for a man of sluggish mind and bad manners there is decidedly no place like home. George Santayana mindhomemen Tolerated people are never conciliated. They live on, but the aroma of their life is lost. George Santayana aromalife-ispeople You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him. George Santayana heartphilosophyreality A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character. George Santayana greatnesscharactermen The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world. George Santayana kindnessphilosophylife It is a pleasant surprise to him (the pure mathematician) and an added problem if he finds that the arts can use his calculations, or that the senses can verify them, much as if a composer found that sailors could heave better when singing his songs. George Santayana mathsongart A friend's only gift is himself. George Santayana self-lovelove Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow And be not happy like a naked star, Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow, Some rapture from the rapture felt afar. George Santayana starsheartpeace A conceived thing is doubly a product of mind, more a product of mind, if you will, than an idea, since ideas arise, so to speak,by the mind's inertia and conceptions of things by its activity. Ideas are mental sediment; conceived things are mental growths. George Santayana growthmindideas In unphilosophical minds any rare or unexpected thing excites wonder, while in philosophical minds the familiar excites wonder also. George Santayana philosophicalunexpectedmind The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns. George Santayana confusedlaughterlife Love is at once more animal than friendship and more divine. George Santayana divineanimallove-is A musical education is necessary for musical judgement. What most people relish is hardly music; it is rather a drowsy reverie relieved by nervous thrills. George Santayana judgementeducationpeople Even the most inspired verse, which boasts not without a relative justification to be immortal, becomes in the course of ages a scarcely legible hieroglyphic; the language it was written in dies, a learned education and an imaginative effort are requisite to catch even a vestige of its original force. Nothing is so irrevocable as mind. George Santayana effortagemind The line between what is known scientifically and what has to be assumed in order to support knowledge is impossible to draw. Memory itself is an internal rumour. George Santayana supportmemoriesorder 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 optimismpowerfulamerica
