George Santayana

“Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.”

“Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.”

“Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.”

“The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.”

“The spirit's foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication.”

“My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”

“The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.”

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

“To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.”

“That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.”

“America is a young country with an old mentality.”

“An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.”

“The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.”

“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”

“The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.”

“To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.”

“If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved.”

“Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.”

“The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.”

“There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.”