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George Santayana Quotes

Philosopher

George Santayana was an American philosopher, essayist, and critic renowned for his unique philosophical thoughts and profound insights into culture, art, and science. His philosophy emphasizes individualism, naturalism, and pragmatism, and his works have had a profound impact on 20th-century philosophy and culture.

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Famous George Santayana Quotes

“The best men in all ages keep classic traditions alive”

Men Age Alive Tradition Classic

Book:The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

Source: The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

“Man's most serious activity is play.”

Men Play Serious Activity Playing Games

Author:George Santayana

“Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.”

Men Mind May Body Hate Walks Animal Opinion Conformity Stand Alone Gregarious

Book:The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies

Source: The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies

“Men become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.”

Men Imagination Too Much Superstitions Superstitious

Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

Source: Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

“The man who would emancipate art from discipline and reason is trying to elude rationality, not merely in art, but in all existence.”

Men Trying Art Reason Existence He Man Discipline Rationality Elude

Book:The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

Source: The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

“With an artist no sane man quarrels, any more than with the colour of a child's eyes.”

Men Children Eye Artist Criticism Colour Sane Quarrels

Book:The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

Source: The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

“To fight is a radical instinct; if men have nothing else to fight over they will fight over words, fancies, or women, or they will fight because they dislike each other's looks, or because they have met walking in opposite directions.”

Ifs Men Looks Fighting Walking Mets Opposites Instinct Radical Fancy Dislike

Book:The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

Source: The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

“A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character.”

Men Needs Mind Character Opinion Greatness Firm Great Men Virtuous Luminous Distinctive

Book:Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion

Source: Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion

“Plasticity loves new moulds because it can fill them, but for a man of sluggish mind and bad manners there is decidedly no place like home.”

Men Mind Home Manners Mould Sluggish Bad Manners Plasticity

Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

Source: Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

“Man is a fighting animal; his thoughts are his banners, and it is a failure of nerve in him if they are only thoughts.”

Ifs Men Ideas Fighting Animal Nerves Banner

Book:Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts

Source: Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts

“Love, whether sexual, parental, or fraternal, is essentially sacrificial, and prompts a man to give his life for his friends.”

Men Love Giving Prompts Parental Fraternal

Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

Source: Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

“The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding.”

Men Heart Eye Understanding Pleasure Demand Constant Belly Indulgence

Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

Source: Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

“Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet religion, for all its poetic motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to the heart of things.”

Men Heart Religion Opinion Endure Poetic Conventions

Book:The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion

Source: The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion

“It would hardly be possible to exaggerate man's wretchedness if it were not so easy to overestimate his sensibility”

Ifs Men Easy Unhappiness Sensibility Wretchedness Overestimate

Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

Source: Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana

“It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.”

Men War Law Religion Blood Honest Morality Soldier Criminals Innocent Superiors Obliged Honest Man Bidding Hangman

Book:The Works of George Santayana

Source: The Works of George Santayana