Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Santayana
George Santayana

George Santayana Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenWorldIfsMindArtMayHumansPhilosophySoulReligionShouldIdeasMemoriesPositive AtheismIdealsLifeNatureAtheismFactsForm

Famous George Santayana Quotes

“Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.”

MayLongEndsReasonWould BeAtheismCivilizationDespairWinterPassionatePositive AtheismUnhappyNo ReasonEpisodesCatastropheChristendomPicturesqueComing To An End
Book:The Works of George Santayana: Character and opinion in the United States. The genteel tradition at bay. Dewey's naturalistic metaphysics. Philosophical heresy
Create image

“It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.”

Has BeensGivenAtheismHonorHighestPositive AtheismRememberedMotiveAttributesDeitiesPathetic
Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana
Create image

“Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.”

WellsSoulMatterFactsCausesReligiousAtheismSourceConflictPositive AtheismDoctrineBitterVainControversyMatter Of FactSectsPretensionImpurityIncoherence
Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana
Create image

“Any attempt to speak without speaking any particular language is not more hopeless than the attempt to have a religion that shall be no religion in particular.... Every living and healthy religion has a marked idiosyncrasy. Its power consists in its special and surprising message and the bias which that revelation gives to life.”

GivingSpeakLanguageAtheismSpecialParticularHealthyMessagesPositive AtheismRevelationsHopelessSurprisingBiasIdiosyncrasies
Author:George Santayana
Create image

“Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that 'a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.' At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.”

MenMindWellsLittlesPhilosophyGodKnownAtheismAddDepthWell KnownSageMaximsEpigrams
Book:The Life of Reason ; Or, The Phases of Human Progress. One-volume Ed
Create image