574 Quotes by George Santayana

Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow And be not happy like a naked star, Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow, Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.

One real world is enough.

The Fates, like an absent-minded printer, seldom allow a single line to stand perfect and unmarred.

I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.

A friend's only gift is himself.

History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory.

It is one thing to lack a heart and another to possess eyes and a just imagination.