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Quote by George Santayana

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Character and Opinion in the United States

This book delves into the various aspects of character and opinion within American society, analyzing the values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape the nation's identity. more

Author

George Santayana
George Santayana

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. more

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“Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.”

MenMayMeanSeemsBeautifulLanguageGivenExpressionHabitDiversityLogicConstitutionFoolishHeatNativeConstructionPatriotConvenientNative Language
Author:George Santayana
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“Truth is one of the realities covered in the eclectic religion of our fathers by the idea of God. Awe very properly hangs about it, since it is the immovable standard and silent witness of all our memories and assertions; and the past and the future, which in our anxious life are so differently interesting and so differently dark, are one seamless garment for the truth, shining like the sun.”

IdeasRealityTruthPastFatherMemoriesDarkInterestingSunTruth IsStandardsShiningSilentWitnessAweCoveredAnxiousOur FatherGarmentsOur MemoriesAssertionEclecticSeamless
Book:Scepticism and Animal Faith
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“A conceived thing is doubly a product of mind, more a product of mind, if you will, than an idea, since ideas arise, so to speak,by the mind's inertia and conceptions of things by its activity. Ideas are mental sediment; conceived things are mental growths.”

IfsMindIdeasSpeakGrowthProductsActivityAriseConceptionInertia
Book:The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, Volume VII, Book One
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“You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.”

MenHeartLongPhilosophyShowsRealityAliveHonestProveAssumptionSincereRealismSkepticismIdealismHonest ManRealistIdealistSceptic
Book:Essays in critical realism: a co-operative study of the problem of knowledge
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“Experience is a mere whiff or rumble, produced by enormously complex and ill-deciphered causes of experience; and in the other direction, experience is a mere peephole through which glimpses come down to us of eternal things.”

CausesEternalExperienceMereComplexesIllGlimpseRumblePeepholes
Book:The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana. 1933-1936. Vol. 5. Book 5
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“... even if Lucretius was wrong, and the soul is immortal, it is nevertheless steadily changing its interests and its possessions.Our lives are mortal if our soul is not; and the sentiment which reconciled Lucretius to death is as much needed if we are to face many deaths, as if we are to face only one.”

IfsSoulFacesInterestOur LivesNeededPossessionMortalsImmortalityImmortalSentimentsNevertheless
Book:The Works of George Santayana
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