574 Quotes by George Santayana

Philosophers are as jealous as women; each wants a monopoly of praise

It is a great bond to dislike the same things.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine then out of a prig

In a moving world readaptation is the price of longevity.

Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.

Tomes of aesthetic criticism hang on a few moments of real delight and intuition.

The profoundest affinities are the most readily felt; they remain a background and standard for all happiness and if we trace them out we succeed.