Author Profile
George Santayana
1863 – 1952 • Spanish • Philosopher
71
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 71 quotesKnowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.— George Santayana
Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.— George Santayana
Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.— George Santayana
The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.— George Santayana
The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.— George Santayana
Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.— George Santayana
Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.— George Santayana
It is always pleasant to be urged to do something on the ground that one can do it well.— George Santayana
Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.— 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
Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.— George Santayana
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.— George Santayana