why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together. George Santayana More Quotes by George Santayana More Quotes From George Santayana A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present. George Santayana changememoriesart Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. George Santayana atheismmenreligion By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence. George Santayana degreesessencemay Man alone knows that he must die; but that very knowledge raises him, in a sense, above mortality, by making him a sharer in the vision of eternal truth. He becomes the spectator of his own tragedy; he sympathizes so much with the fury of the storm that he has no ears left for the shipwrecked sailor, though the sailor were his own soul. The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it. George Santayana visionsoulmen A conception not reducible to the small change of daily experience is like a currency not exchangeable for articles of consumption; it is not a symbol, but a fraud. George Santayana small-changescurrencyhype Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions. George Santayana possessionmenchildren Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth. George Santayana victorymilitaryreligion The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy. George Santayana wisdomrootsphilosophy Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies. George Santayana collegeoxfordphilosophy Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it subserves these ends. George Santayana demandimaginationart Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. George Santayana Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another people are friends in spots. George Santayana Keep Walking......Define Yourself By Where You Are Headed! George Santayana There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity. George Santayana Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him. George Santayana Sanity is a madness put to good use. George Santayana When you think positive, good things happen! George Santayana A child only educated at school is an uneducated child. George Santayana Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabline it to make its peace with its destiny. George Santayana
