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George Santayana

55 quotes

George Santayana (1863–1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist known for his elegant prose and incisive cultural commentary. His famous warning — "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" — is one of the most quoted lines in the English language.

“When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions their reasons are always different.”

— George Santayana

Men

All Quotes by George Santayana

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”

— George Santayana

Future

“A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.”

— George Santayana

Happiness

“The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.”

— George Santayana

Art

“Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world.”

— George Santayana

Music

“For a man who has done his natural duty, death is as natural as sleep.”

— George Santayana

Death

“To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.”

— George Santayana

Patriotism

“Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.”

— George Santayana

Life

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

— George Santayana

Truth

“The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate they are green and vigorous in old age.”

— George Santayana

Age

“The family is one of nature's masterpieces.”

— George Santayana

Family

“Music is essentially useless, as is life.”

— George Santayana

Music

“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

Best

“It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.”

— George Santayana

Art

“Only the dead have seen the end of the war.”

— George Santayana

War

“History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.”

— George Santayana

History

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

— George Santayana

Intelligence

“One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.”

— George Santayana

Friendship

“Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.”

— George Santayana

Happiness

“Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent it is a salutation, not an embrace.”

— George Santayana

Knowledge

“Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.”

— George Santayana

Courage