George Santayana Quotes

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George Santayana

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : December 16, 1863

Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.

George Santayana

By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

George Santayana

Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine.

George Santayana

Depression is rage spread thin.

George Santayana

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

George Santayana

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

George Santayana

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

George Santayana

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.

George Santayana

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.

George Santayana

The tendency to gather and to breed philosophers in universities does not belong to ages of free and humane reflection: it is scholastic and proper to the Middle Ages and to Germany.

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