George Santayana Philosophy Quotations

It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.

The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast on her character.

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

The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.

It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.

Reason in my philosophy is only a harmony among irrational impulses.

Philosophy may describe unreasoning, as it may describe force; it cannot hope to refute them.

Philosophers are as jealous as woman; each wants a monopoly of praise.

Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.

Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies.

Does the thoughtful man suppose that...the present experiment in civilization is the last world we will see?

There are three traps that strangle philosophy: The church, the marriage bed, and the professor's chair.

The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them

Philosophy is a more intense sort of experience than common life is, just as pure and subtle music, heard in retirement, is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities.

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

Nietzsche said that the earth has been a madhouse long enough. Without contradicting him we might perhaps soften the expression, and say that philosophy has been long enough an asylum for enthusiasts.

You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that 'a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.' At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

Nietzsche was personally more philosophical than his philosophy. His talk about power, harshness, and superb immorality was the hobby of a harmless young scholar and constitutional invalid.