I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.
George SantayanaIf artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them.
George SantayanaMiracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.
George SantayanaChristianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.
George Santayana