WIST Quotations

Santayana, George -- “Aversion from Platonism” (1914-18), Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, #5 (1922)

Dave — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:20:32 +0000

Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
“Aversion from Platonism” (1914-18), Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, #5 (1922)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- “Premonition”

Dave — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 17:26:44 +0000

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks
Fill us with deeper longing for her word;
She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks;
She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
“Premonition”

Santayana, George -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 14:48:37 +0000

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible is that which takes a little longer.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
(Attributed)

Quoted in Reader's Digest (Nov 1939), but without citation. The sentiment has a number of antecedents (see discussion here).

Santayana, George -- Dialogues in Limbo (1926)

Dave — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:01:58 +0000

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Dialogues in Limbo (1926)

Santayana, George -- Interpretations of Poetry and Religion, ch. 9 (1900)

Dave — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 19:46:07 +0000

Habit is stronger than reason.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Interpretations of Poetry and Religion, ch. 9 (1900)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- Persons and Places, entry, c. 1880 (1944)

Dave — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 13:58:26 +0000

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.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Persons and Places, entry, c. 1880 (1944)

Santayana, George -- Platonism and the Spiritual Life (1927)

Dave — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 17:35:04 +0000

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to be a light amid the thorns.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Platonism and the Spiritual Life (1927)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- Soliloquies in England, “On My Friendly Critics,” (1922)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the Universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their own human interests.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Soliloquies in England, “On My Friendly Critics,” (1922)

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Introduction (1905-06)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1 “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 10 (1905-06)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1 “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 4 (1905-06)

Dave — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:25:55 +0000

There is a kind of courtesy in scepticism. It would be an offence against polite conventions to press our doubts too far and question the permanence of our estates, our neighbours’ independent existence, or even the justification of a good bishop’s faith and income. Against metaphysicians, and even against bishops, sarcasm was not without its savour; but the line must be drawn somewhere by a gentleman and a man of the world.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1, “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905-1906)

Dave — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:54:26 +0000

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1, “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905-1906)
(Source)

Often given as "Those who do not remember the past ...." Quoted at the Auschwitz Holocaust Museum, via Polish, as: "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again."

Often misattributed to Winston Churchill, who paraphrased it in a Commons speech in 1948: "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 2 “Reason in Society,” ch. 2 “The Family” (1905-06)

Dave — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 14:46:59 +0000

Individualism in one sense the only possible ideal; for whatever social order may be most valuable can be valuable only for its effect on conscious individuals.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, vol. 2 “Reason in Society,” ch. 3 “Industry, Government, and War” (1905-06)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, vol. 2 “Reason in Society,” ch. 4 “The Aristocratic Ideal” (1905-06)

Dave — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:19:13 +0000

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, vol. 2 “Reason in Society” (1905)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

To fight is a radical instinct; if men have nothing else to fight over they 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. To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 3 “Reason in Religion, ch. 7 (1905-06)

Dave — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:28:13 +0000

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 3 “Reason in Religion,” ch. 6 “The Christian Epic” (1905-06)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, not condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 3 “Reason in Religion,” ch. 11 “Spirituality and Its Corruptions” (1905-06)

Dave — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:24:47 +0000

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 4 “Reason in Art,” ch. 9 “Justification of Art” (1905-06)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

To be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)

Dave — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:35:48 +0000

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason, Vol. 2: Reason in Society, ch. 8 “Ideal Society” (1905)

Dave — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:11:03 +0000

Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason, Vol. 2: Reason in Society, ch. 8 “Ideal Society” (1905)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason, “Reason in Society,” ch. 2 “The Family” (1905-06)

Dave — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 23:38:51 +0000

Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason, “Reason in Society,” ch. 2 “The Family” (1905-06)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason, vol. 3 “Reason in Religion,” ch. 1 (1905)

Dave — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:52:48 +0000

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. In the rare circumstances where a choice is possible, he may, with some difficulty, make an exchange; but even then he is only adopting a new convention which may be more agreeable to his personal temper but which is essentially as arbitrary as the old.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason, vol. 3 “Reason in Religion,” ch. 1 (1905)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- The Sense of Beauty, Part 1 “The Nature of Beauty,” sec. 4 “Work and Play” (1896)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life regardless of its contents.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Sense of Beauty, Part 1 “The Nature of Beauty,” sec. 4 “Work and Play” (1896)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- Winds of Doctrine (1913)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Winds of Doctrine (1913)

Santayana, George -- Essay (1916 ca.), “War Shrines,” Soliloquies in England, ch. 24 (1922)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Essay (1916 ca.), “War Shrines,” Soliloquies in England, ch. 24 (1922)
(Source)