574 Quotes by George Santayana

In unphilosophical minds any rare or unexpected thing excites wonder, while in philosophical minds the familiar excites wonder also.

Is it indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the occasional harmony between our nature and our environment, that we draw our conception of the divine life.

The wisest mind has something yet to learn.

Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.

Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.

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.

Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it subserves these ends.

To keep beauty in its place is to make all things beautiful.

Love is at once more animal than friendship and more divine ...