Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
George SantayanaFacts are all accidents. They all might have been different. They all may become different. They all may collapse altogether.
George SantayanaHe thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.
George SantayanaProgress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
George Santayana