574 Quotes by George Santayana

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.

Nothing is so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

Men have always been the victims of trifles, but when they were uncomfortable and passionate, and in constant danger, they hardly had time to notice what the daily texture of their thoughts was in their calm intervals, whereas with us the intervals are all.

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations

By nature's kindly disposition most questions which are beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.

Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.

There is nothing sweeter than to be sympathized with.