The wisest mind has something yet to learn. George Santayana More Quotes by George Santayana More Quotes From George Santayana To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language. George Santayana language speak religious Each religion necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself. Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. George Santayana rivals historical men The mediocrity of everything in the great world of today is simply appalling. We live in intellectual slums. George Santayana mediocrity intellectual world The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular. George Santayana life long believe Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. George Santayana lasts long firsts Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality. George Santayana parent memories children ... so in love the heart surrenders itself entirely to the one being that has known how to touch it. That being is not selected; it is recognised and obeyed. George Santayana surrender heart love What renders man an imaginative and moral being is that in society he gives new aims to his life which could not have existed in solitude : the aims of friendship , religion , science , and art . George Santayana giving men art Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world. George Santayana clothes benefits photography The unforgivable sin is the refusal to pardon. George Santayana unforgivable-sin refusal forgiveness Old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird's chirp. George Santayana self bird memories Half our standards come from our first masters, and the other half from our first loves. George Santayana half love firsts Music is essentially useless, as life is; but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions. George Santayana music useless life-is The truth properly means the sum of all true propositions, what omniscience would assert, the whole ideal system of qualities andrelations which the world has exemplified or will exemplify. The truth is all things seen under the form of eternity. George Santayana quality truth mean Love, whether sexual, parental, or fraternal, is essentially sacrificial, and prompts a man to give his life for his friends. George Santayana love giving men Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy. George Santayana intimacy together needs Every nation thinks its own madness normal and requisite; more passion and more fancy it calls folly, less it calls imbecility. George Santayana fancy passion thinking All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets. George Santayana rhetorical poet language Memory itself is an internal rumour. George Santayana rumours moments memories To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts. George Santayana distance stars beautiful
