George Santayana

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana, was a Spanish and American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Wikipedia

• Born: December 16, 1863, Madrid, Spain

• Died: September 26, 1952, Rome, Italy

• Parents: Josefina Borrás

• Education: King's College, Cambridge, Harvard University

• Written: The Sense of Beauty, The Last Puritan, Scepticism and Animal Faith

Great Thoughts of George Santayana

"There is no tyranny so hateful as a vulgar and anonymous tyranny. It is all-permeating, all-thwarting; it blasts every budding novelty and sprig of genius with its omnipresent and fierce stupidity. Such a headless people has the mind of a worm and the claws of a dragon."

"The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about."

"It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness."

"Reason and happiness are like other flowers; they wither when plucked."

"I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty."

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child."

"The family is one of nature's masterpieces."

"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."

"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 the light amid the thorns."

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