George Santayana

“I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.”

“For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.”

“Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.”

“Only the dead have seen the end of the war.”

“Sanity is madness put to good use.”

“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be.”

“Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.”

“Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.”

“The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.”

“Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.”

“A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”

“In Greece wise men speak and fools decide.”

“The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.”

“Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies.”

“Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.”

“It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.”

“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”

“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”

“The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age.”

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