George Santayana quotes

“In Greece wise men speak and fools decide.”

— George Santayana

“Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited.”

— George Santayana

“Sanity is madness put to good use.”

— George Santayana

“Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.”

— George Santayana

“The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.”

— George Santayana

“A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”

— George Santayana

“Intolerance is a form of egotism, and to condemn egotism intolerantly is to share it.”

— George Santayana

“The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.”

— George Santayana

“The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.”

— George Santayana

“Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.”

— George Santayana

“Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.”

— George Santayana

“Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.”

— George Santayana

“Habit is stronger than reason.”

— George Santayana

“Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.”

— George Santayana

“The spirit's foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication.”

— George Santayana

“To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.”

— George Santayana

“Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy.”

— George Santayana

“For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.”

— George Santayana

“Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.”

— George Santayana

“The Bible is literature, not dogma.”

— George Santayana

“The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.”

— George Santayana

“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

“Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.”

— George Santayana

“Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own infinitude, and his infinitude is, in one sense, overcome.”

— George Santayana

“The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal.”

— George Santayana

“The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.”

— George Santayana

“It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.”

— George Santayana

“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.”

— George Santayana

“Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.”

— George Santayana

“Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.”

— George Santayana