George Santayana Quotes

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

"Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity"

"Sanity is a madness put to good uses"

"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."

"America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences"

"A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity."

"England is not the best possible world but it is the best actual country, and a great rest after America"

"One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human."

"There is nothing to which men, while they have food and drink, cannot reconcile themselves."

"The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity"

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"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."

"Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are"

"The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine."

"Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up."

"The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations."

"The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas."

"Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure."

"Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated."

"Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited"