574 Quotes by George Santayana

The empiricist... thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous . . . to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy.

Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.

The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend.The Life of Reason, 1905-1906

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it...

The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism.

At best, the true philosopher can fulfil his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat.

If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.